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NUCLEAR
More Sci- Than Fi, Physicists Create Antimatter
Chemical Controls Inadequate to Prevent Accidents
UK should not rescue B.Energy-green group
Cause of gulf illness is still unknown
German party in U-turn on atomic, green power
Iran to build more nuke power plants - atomic chief
Evidence on Iraq Challenged
U.N. Nuclear Inspectors Know Where to Look in Iraq
Koizumi: N.Korea to Allow IAEA Nuclear Inspections
U.N. Nuclear Agency Ready for N.Korea Inspections
Russia Struggles with Post-Soviet Nuclear Legacy
Calvert Cliffs Cited by NRC
construction begins on radioactive waste plant
Bush to seek 'go' for strike within two days
Bush Sends Congress a Proposed Resolution on Iraq
Text: Bush, Powell on the U.N. and Iraq
German minister's comparison of Bush to Hitler sparks outrage
Hitler's undemocratic mandate
MILITARY
U.S. Company to Take Over Karzai Safety
U.S. Drops Bid to Strengthen Germ Warfare Accord
Lockheed Martin awarded FBI contract
U.S., China in new naval dispute
Iranian Military Drafts Plans Against U.S.
Israel Moves on Arafat's Compound After Bomber Kills 5
US Homeland Security sets up Israel liaison
Two Koreas Start Clearing DMZ Land mines
Peril to Mideast Allies Acknowledged
Havel wants NATO to target 'new' evil
FBI Warns of Chechen-Led Al Qaeda Plot
A Parody of Partnership
Omar Al-Faruq Recruited by The CIA
Annan Tells Iraq It Must Allow Unfettered Weapons Inspections
Air Force Base Exempted from Reporting Rules
US Air Power Could Not Destroy Iraqi Arms-Rumsfeld
U.S. troops ready to assist Yemen from base in Africa
A Gulf War Veteran Asks: What Will I Tell My Children?
POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
U.S. Was Aware of bin Laden Threat Before Sept. 11 Attacks
ENERGY AND OTHER
Signing up for renewable energy offers both rewards and pitfalls
Stockpiles of pesticides in Africa are dangerous
ACTIVISTS
Police warn of IMF gridlock
-------- NUCLEAR
More Sci- Than Fi, Physicists Create Antimatter
New York Times
September 19, 2002
By DENNIS OVERBYE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/science/19HYDR.html
Physicists working in Europe announced yesterday that they had passed through nature's looking glass and had created atoms made of antimatter, or antiatoms, opening up the possibility of experiments in a realm once reserved for science fiction writers. Such experiments, theorists say, could test some of the basic tenets of modern physics and light the way to a deeper understanding of nature.
Matter and antimatter are like the good and evil twins of nature; they are endowed with equal and opposite characteristics like charge and spin, so if they meet they obliterate each other, releasing a flash of energy upon contact.
Weird as it sounds, antimatter is a normal feature of the real, unfictional universe. Scientists see the creation of antihydrogen atoms as the first step toward testing some physicists' deepest notions about nature, which hold that antimatter should look and behave identically to ordinary matter.
For example, any violation of the expected symmetry between hydrogen and antihydrogen would rock physics to its core.
The new research was conducted by physicists at CERN, the particle physics laboratory outside Geneva.
By corralling clouds of antimatter particles in a cylindrical chamber laced with detectors and electric and magnetic fields, the physicists assembled antihydrogen atoms, the looking glass equivalent of hydrogen, the most simple atom in nature. Whereas hydrogen consists of a positively charged proton circled by a negatively charged electron, in antihydrogen the proton's counterpart, a negatively charged antiproton, is circled by an antielectron, otherwise known as a positron.
They then observed the flashes of energy when the new antihydrogen atoms annihilated themselves in collisions with ordinary matter in the walls of the chamber.
At least 50,000 antihydrogen atoms have been created since the experiment began in August, said Dr. Jeffrey S. Hangst, from Aarhus University in Denmark, who coordinated efforts by 39 physicists from 10 institutions in a collaboration named Athena. A paper on their results has been accepted for publication in Nature and was posted on its Web site www.nature.com/nature.
While antihydrogen atoms have been glimpsed in CERN experiments before, this is the first time they are being produced under circumstances that might eventually permit their detailed study, the scientists say.
"It's very exciting to see the production of antihydrogen," said Dr. Rolf Landua, a CERN physicist and Athena member. "It opens up a whole new line of experiments with antimatter."
In publishing its paper, Athena appears to have just beaten a consortium, also based at CERN and known as Atrap, which has also been in the forefront of antimatter research. In an e-mail message, Atrap's leader, Dr. Gerald Gabrielse of Harvard, called the production of antihydrogen an "important and challenging" milestone, adding that his group had seen similar signals.
Dr. Alan Kostelecky, a theoretical physicist at Indiana University, called it "a phenomenal technical achievement," and said that Athena and Atrap were the "the Wright Brothers of antimatter physics." Dr. Kostelecky compared today's announcement to the first powered flight: "Who knows where it will lead. Nobody can foresee it."
In science fiction, antimatter, with its perfect convertibility to energy, is the ultimate rocket fuel, but the CERN scientists see their antihydrogen atoms as a ticket not across the galaxy but in effect to a different mathematical universe, in which positive is negative and left is right.
According to the standard theories of physics, the antimatter universe should look identical to our own. Antihydrogen and hydrogen atoms should have the same properties, emitting the exact same frequencies of light, for example.
But some theorists have speculated that the symmetry between matter and antimatter might be violated in some versions of theories that seek to unite Einstein's theories on gravity with the weird rules of quantum mechanics. The most ambitious such "theory of everything," which portrays particles as strings wriggling in 10-dimensional space-time, seems to preserve the matter-antimatter symmetry, but theorists do not really understand why.
Antimatter has been part of physics since 1927 when its existence was predicted by the British physicist Paul Dirac. The antielectron, or positron, was discovered in 1932. According to the theory, matter can only be created in particle-antiparticle pairs. It is still a mystery, cosmologists say, why the universe seems to be overwhelmingly composed of normal matter.
In modern laboratories like CERN or Fermilab in Illinois, physicists accelerate antiprotons or positrons produced by nuclear reactions to the speed of light and collide them with conventional particles to produce tiny starbursts of primordial energy, recreating forms of matter and energy unseen since the big bang.
The raw material for CERN's antimatter factories is made by shooting protons, or naked hydrogen nuclei, into a iridium target, but "instead of speeding them up," Dr. Landua said, "we slow them down."
To do that, CERN built the Antiproton Decelerator, which uses electric and magnetic fields to slow the particles from near light speed to about one-tenth of that, he said.
From there the antiprotons go into a "catching trap," where most of their remaining energy is absorbed and radiated away by electrons swirling in a magnetic field, lowering them to a temperature of about 15 degrees above absolute zero and speeds of a few hundred feet per second. Meanwhile, positrons from the decay of a form of radioactive sodium are separately slowed and accumulated. The two clouds of oppositely charged particles are then superimposed by adjusting electrical fields in a cylindrical "mixing trap" lined with detectors.
Once an antiproton and positron have joined forces, the resulting antihydrogen atom is electrically neutral and thus no longer caged by the electrical fields in the trap. "The atom drifts to where it wants to go," said Dr. Landua, namely the wall where its components will annihilate with their opposite numbers in a characteristic pattern: the antiproton into a spray of lighter particles called pions, and the positron producing a flash of gamma rays. The Athena team recorded this pattern 131 times and based on simulations, concluded that it had produced at least 50,000 antihydrogen atoms.
The Athena experimenters say they still know very little about their antihydrogen atoms. They say that in the spring, they hope to train a laser on the antihydrogen to make a preliminary measurement of the atom's spectrum so that it can be compared to regular hydrogen.
"Any measurement would be interesting because we know essentially nothing about it," Dr. Hangst said.
-------- accidents and safety
Chemical Controls Inadequate to Prevent Accidents
September 19, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-19-09.asp#anchor1
HOUSTON, Texas,Inadequate controls of reactive chemicals are responsible for continuing deaths, injuries, and environmental and property damage around the country, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).
The CSB's new findings and recommendations stem from a two year investigation into hazards at U.S. sites that manufacture, store or use potentially reactive chemicals. The study examined 167 serious chemical accidents in the U.S. over the last 20 years that have involved uncontrolled chemical reactions.
These accidents caused 108 deaths as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage. CSB investigators have concluded that reactive chemical accidents pose a "significant problem" and that the pertinent federal process safety regulations contain "significant gaps" in their applicability and in their specific provisions.
The CSB convened in Houston Tuesday to vote on recommendations to federal agencies and trade groups to improve the safety of industrial processes that use reactive chemicals, which can lead to hazardous chemical reactions if not managed right. These uncontrolled reactions can cause fires, explosions and toxic gas releases.
CSB's investigation was triggered by a runaway reaction at a Morton International facility in New Jersey in 1998, in which chemicals reacted to release heat, leading to an explosion.
The CSB study found that more than half of the 167 surveyed incidents involved chemicals that are not covered by either the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Process Safety Management (PSM) or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Risk Management Program (RMP) rules. These rules require companies to apply good safety management practices to certain hazardous chemical processes.
"The lack of comprehensive regulatory coverage for reactive hazards has been a deficiency since the process safety rules were first issued in the 1990s," said Carolyn Merritt, CSB chair and chief executive officer.
"The reactive chemical study is thus one of the most important investigations the CSB has done," Merritt added. "We will be voting on recommendations to OSHA, EPA, and industry that - if thoroughly implemented - will have a significant impact on chemical process safety in this country."
The CSB is an independent federal agency established in 1998 with the mission to protect workers, the public, and the environment by investigating and preventing chemical accidents.
-------- britain
UK should not rescue B.Energy-green group
REUTERS UK:
September 19, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17819/story.htm
LONDON - Britain should not offer any more help to crisis-hit nuclear generator British Energy and must wind the firm up, SERA, an environmental group with links to the ruling Labour Party said yesterday.
"The government should offer no bailout for British Energy but instead force the company into administration," Bill Eyre, chairman of SERA, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association, whose membership includes over 100 Labour members of parliament and four ministers, said in a statement.
"There should be no handout for a lame duck business."
Last week the government gave British Energy, the country's largest generator, a 410 million pound ($631.5 million) temporary loan after the firm warned it was facing insolvency because of low UK power prices.
The emergency funding runs out on September 27 and the government has yet to decide whether to continue funding the company, which was privatised in 1996, or send it into administration.
SERA, said the loan should be repaid immediately with the company sent into administration and its nuclear power stations overseas sold.
Its eight nuclear plants in the UK, which probably could not be sold because of because of huge decommissioning and waste management liabilities, should be transferred to the new nuclear Liabilities Management Authority which is being set up.
SERA said the government's energy policy, due to be detailed in a white paper early next year, should focus on phasing out nuclear power quickly and boost investment in renewable power and energy efficiency measures.
"We believe it is in the best interests of the taxpayer to phase out nuclear power rapidly as to do otherwise would lead to mounting economic losses that would ultimately fall to the public to pay," said Eyres.
Earlier yesterday, Dieter Helm, a top academic and an influence in government, said UK consumers should be forced to buy nuclear power to rescue British Energy and support the struggling nuclear sector.
Helm argued nuclear power should be supported by similar rules to those which help green energy by providing a guaranteed market for renewable power producers.
British Energy shares continued their relentless slide yesterday, down another 25 percent to 9-1/2 pence. The stock has lost around 90 percent of its value since September 6 when the company said it faced insolvency and begged the government for help.
Shareholders fear their investment will be wiped out if British Energy is allowed to collapse.
The company's bond due 2006 was bid at 40 percent of face value and the 2003 bond at 42 percent. Both were up around five points after Tuesday's savage drop, triggered by another downgrade of British Energy's credit rating.
-------- depleted uranium
Cause of gulf illness is still unknown
Thursday, September 19, 2002
By Mike Wynn and Johnny Edwards Staff Writers,
Augusta Chronicle (Georgia)
http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/091902/met_gulf.shtml
Willie Wright knew that something he came in contact with during the Persian Gulf War was killing him.
Nine years after he returned, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and later, brain tumors. Even before then, Mr. Wright, a specialist in the 1148th Transportation Company, had suffered from skin rashes and aching joints.
"I didn't have any problems before I went over," he said in January, "but I had some when I left there."
On May 25, Mr. Wright died of the lung cancer at age 53.
Neither the Department of Defense nor the scientific community can say for sure what's causing some soldiers who fought for the liberation of Kuwait to become sick and die. The lack of answers raises concern as the Bush administration pushes for another war against Iraq.
There are many theories, and they are as diverse and complex as the symptoms.
"I believe it came from the depleted uranium they were exposed to while in the gulf," Mr. Wright's widow, Katrina, said recently at her Atlanta home.
U.S. forces used depleted uranium, a heavy metal that is slightly radioactive, on bullets and shells because of its effectiveness in piercing armor. They also used it to enhance armor protection on some M-1 Abrams tanks. When uranium weapons burn, uranium oxide dust is created.
The 1148th didn't fight on the front lines, but it hauled fuel into war zones. On the way, members of the unit often passed burned-out Iraqi vehicles and tanks destroyed by U.S. artillery.
Mrs. Wright believes that her husband and other soldiers breathed in particles of uranium oxide dust.
Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, said depleted uranium used by the United States and Britain is to blame for high rates of cancer among Iraqi troops who fought in the war, in addition to citizens of southern Iraq. He said it's also the source of American veterans' health problems.
"At that time, we had chemical weapons" but didn't use them, Mr. Aldouri said in an interview with The Augusta Chronicle. "Your people used this depleted uranium in Iraq during the war. I think the whole area has been affected by the depleted uranium."
Doctors discovered Mr. Wright's lung cancer in October 2000 and found brain tumors seven months later. Mrs. Wright acknowledges that her husband of 18 years was a longtime smoker but says his other afflictions strengthen her argument that his death is related to the gulf war.
The health problems eventually cost him his job of 20 years at a Scottdale, Ga., steel fabrication plant because he was physically unable to perform his duties, she said.
Mr. Wright's brain tumors were removed in September 2001, but an MRI last March revealed more cancerous growths. His condition worsened, and on May 20 he was taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. He never left alive.
Ten days later, Mrs. Wright and the couple's five children buried him in his uniform, adorned with the medals and pins he had earned.
"I knew he wasn't coming back home," she said, "and I think he knew it, too."
photo: metro Willie Wright is seen with his wife, Katrina, at their Atlanta home during his battle with lung cancer. He died May 25. SPECIAL Low-level fallout
Through the end of the current fiscal year, the federal government will have spent more than $200 million on at least 200 gulf war research-related projects. They cover the spectrum, ranging from $617,000 spent on the effects of gulf war service on military dogs to nearly $14 million on chronic, multisymptom illnesses.
The cost to taxpayers for projects dealing with gulf war illnesses, including funds for research, registry programs, investigations and public relations, is estimated at more than $500 million.
Dr. Robert Haley, one of the better known researchers on gulf war illness, has been studying the problems of Desert Shield/Desert Storm vets for eight years. Dr. Haley, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said he believes afflicted soldiers have neurological damage caused by exposure to low levels of chemicals and nerve agents during the war, which is why years later they're experiencing body pain, cognitive problems, rashes and other symptoms.
His original benefactor was Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot, who wanted to fund research independent of the government. The search for answers has led Dr. Haley to develop new brain-imaging techniques. Brain scans of gulf war veterans have found cellular abnormalities and deep brain damage, he said.
The government acknowledged that sarin gas was released when the Army blew up munitions sites near Khamisiyah, Iraq, but Dr. Haley said the real damage was done a few days into the air war, when U.S. planes bombed hundreds of Iraqi chemical-weapons stores, creating a cloud that drifted over coalition troops and fallout that rained on them for weeks. That would explain the frequency of chemical alarms triggered in base camps but ruled false because no one got sick or died.
The Defense Department has reported that two chemical-weapons depots were destroyed during the bombing - at Muhammadiyat and Al Muthanna in central Iraq - but concluded that, with the exception of forward-deployed Special Forces, the fallout could not have reached troops in high enough concentrations to have long-term health effects.
Many of the symptoms gulf veterans are listing have been reported by soldiers in conflicts dating back to the Civil War, said Dr. Luis Montalvo, a primary care physician at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Augusta. He said that stress may be a factor in the illnesses but that it could also be something else.
"I've been working with veterans for almost 10 years, and I can tell you I've seen some people with some real problems, to the point that they cannot function, can't work, lost their jobs," said Dr. Montalvo, who spent five months in the Persian Gulf area after shipping out with the 382nd Field Hospital unit from Augusta. "My opinion is that it might still be something that we haven't been able to find out yet."
There is little research left to do on the subject, except for one project, said a researcher at the Medical College of Georgia.
"One last thing to do is to look at these people on autopsy," said Dr. Jerry Buccafusco, the director of MCG's Alzheimer's Research Center. "Cells die in different ways, and you may be able to tell something from the way the cells die or if the cell death is specific to certain brain regions that control various aspects of behavior or physiology.
"That's the other experiment that needs to be done, to look at autopsy tissue, and that will really depend on the willingness of the veteran to allow the tissue to be looked at."
Cancer and dying
At least two other 1148th veterans, Doug Scott and John O'Donnell, have died of illnesses since the war. Mr. O'Donnell died March 31, 2000, at age 51. His wife, Jane, spoke to The Chronicle briefly about his death but would not elaborate because of potential litigation against the government.
He was diagnosed with liver cancer about three weeks before he died. Mrs. O'Donnell said he died of a blood clot in a leg.
Mr. Scott, a state probation officer, died last fall. He was 25 during the gulf war, when he served as a lieutenant, and 35 when he succumbed to brain cancer.
Before his death, the VA had determined that his illness was connected to his military service. Mr. Scott was on 100 percent disability, unable to work, unable to walk and in his last days confined to his home.
His brain tumor was discovered in 1995, after he lost muscle control in his right leg and stubbed his toe. His doctor told him the tumor had been present for two years, his mother said.
During his final weeks, his mother, Martha Scott, bathed him, dressed him and put baby monitors in her room and his. An only child, Mr. Scott was fiercely independent. Being in a wheelchair frustrated him. Those closest to him said he never spoke about what might have made him sick - he just kept saying he would get better.
photo: metro Doug Scott presents a saber to the Academy of Richmond County Army JROTC Battalion commander, Brandon Brantley. The saber was dedicated in honor of Mr. Scott on May 9, 2001. He died of brain cancer five months later on Oct. 1. JONATHAN ERNST/FILE "I remember him, just days before he died, sitting on the foot of his bed and saying, 'I'm going to beat this thing."' Mrs. Scott said.
On Oct. 1, she woke up at 5:30 a.m. and went into his room to check on him. His hands and body were warm, but his face was white, and she knew he had gone.
Mrs. Scott has two U.S. flags, folded into triangles and encased in glass, above the fireplace in her sun room, one for her son, the other for her husband, Rudolph Scott. The elder Mr. Scott, a Vietnam veteran, died of lung cancer about a month before his son.
"I don't think he ever regretted going to the gulf war," Mrs. Scott said of her son. "He just said he didn't want to die."
Return to Iraq Veterans' advocates fear that the government will repeat how it has treated gulf war soldiers if the United States again sends troops to the region to oust Saddam Hussein.
"The real question is, if (the government) cannot tell the truth and right the wrongs of the past, how can the military of today and their families expect them to do the right thing?" said Rick Weidman, the director of government relations for the Vietnam Veterans of America.
U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee and head of the Veterans Administration during the Carter administration, said that the Pentagon and the VA health care system are not prepared to deal with massive casualties from biological and chemical warfare.
"If you're going to go for regime change, and commit (200,000 or 300,000) or 400,000 troops to Iraq, it would be extremely bloody, very long, very costly to this country, to our economy, to our forces, and I hope we don't have to do that," Mr. Cleland said.
Heeding lessons of the first war with Iraq, the Defense Department has since tightened up its record keeping, hoping to avoid the confusion and lack of information that has frustrated research into gulf war illnesses.
In any future conflict in the Persian Gulf, vaccines given to troops in the field would be electronically archived, and the Defense Department would compile data on units' locations and any symptoms reported by soldiers before, during and after deployment, according to Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Deployment Health Support Directorate.
The military has also become more cognizant of environmental hazards, including those created when chemicals are dispersed from bombed factories. In Afghanistan, environmental monitoring teams check for toxins in the air, soil and water before ground troops are moved into an area, Dr. Kilpatrick said.
Mr. Aldouri, the Iraqi ambassador, said his country won't be using chemical or biological weapons if there is another conflict because it no longer has any.
photo: metro Katrina Wright believes that her husband, Willie, was exposed to depleted uranium during the Persian Gulf War, which she says caused the lung cancer that killed him in May. U.S. troops used the metal on bullets and shells to pierce armor. MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF "Right now, of course, we will not use any unconventional weapons because we don't have any chemical weapons or other kinds of weapons which are forbidden," he said. "All facilities, all factories, all sites have been destroyed by inspections and by the Iraqi government itself, so we are no more belonging to the club of this mass destruction. I find it ridiculous that we are a threat to the American people.
"If there will be another illness phenomena as there was before, I think you will have to blame yourself."
Broken up
The 1148th that deployed to the gulf war was effectively split up in 1995 when the Army moved its parts to Thomasville and Bainbridge, both in southwest Georgia.
Some members of the unit retired. Some joined the Army Reserve at Fort Gordon. Some joined up with the 878th Engineer Battalion, housed in the armory near Lake Olmstead that was once the 1148th's.
Some recall their time in the unit as some of the best of their lives. The 1148th was particularly close, made up of brothers, cousins, husbands and wives, fellow church members and lifelong friends.
"The time I spent in the unit and the time I spent in the military, I treasure that," said Richard Germany, who left the National Guard in 1995. "And I would go anywhere in the world today with these people. This was the tightest bunch of people for any military organization that existed."
Some veterans say that, despite everything that has happened since the war - the sickness, the uncertainties over the cause, the battles with the VA, the deaths - they would still go back to the Persian Gulf if their country needed them.
That's how Dale Sanders, a sergeant in the 1148th, feels. Mr. Sanders has had throat surgery to help with sleep apnea and has had four biopsies taken from his left ear. He said his father was a Vietnam veteran who died because of exposure to Agent Orange.
"I'd do it all over again. That's part of war, I guess," Mr. Sanders said of his ailments. "If you're not willing to fight for your country to be free, you don't need to be here."
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Augusta Chronicle tracked down 102 of the 166 men and women who served with Augusta's 1148th Transportation Company during the Persian Gulf War and looked at what has happened to its members and their families since, and what could happen if U.S. forces return to the gulf.
SUNDAY: The 1148th Transportation Company's job of hauling fuel during the war put its reservists all over the theater of combat, exposing them to almost every hazard associated with Desert Storm. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091502/met_gulf_war1.shtml
MONDAY: On Jan. 12, 1991, members of the 1148th were injected with the anthrax vaccine, in some cases against their will. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091602/met_gulf.shtml
TUESDAY: When their bodies began deteriorating after the gulf war, some veterans say, they didn't get the help they needed from the federal agency charged with caring for them. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091702/met_gulf.shtml
WEDNESDAY: There is growing evidence that the men and women who served in Desert Storm are not the only victims of gulf war-related health problems. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091802/met_gulf.shtml
THURSDAY: Some fear another war with Iraq could bring a repeat of the health problems plaguing so many Persian Gulf War veterans. http://augustachronicle.com/stories/091902/met_gulf.shtml
Reach Mike Wynn at (706) 823-3218 or Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225.
-------- germany
German party in U-turn on atomic, green power
REUTERS GERMANY:
September 19, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17822/story.htm
BERLIN - The German opposition's candidate to become economy minister in a future government signalled yesterday a possible U-turn in energy policy, saying he saw no need to review nuclear phase-out plans.
"At the moment I think we have enough energy, which is why I wouldn't speak now with the electricity industry again about the atomic energy phase-out," Lothar Spaeth told Handelsblatt newspaper in an interview.
Germany's Christian Democrats indicated in their manifesto they would overturn legislation passed by the current Social Democrat/Greens government to phase out nuclear power over the next two decades.
On the back of that pledge, shares of big utilities, such as RWE and E.ON , had been tipped to gain should the conservatives win Sunday's general election.
In another apparent U-turn, Spaeth said he would also continue subsidies for renewable energies, like wind and solar.
"We're interested in having as much renewable energy as possible," Spaeth said.
-------- iran
Iran to build more nuke power plants - atomic chief
REUTERS IRAN:
September 19, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17820/story.htm
TEHRAN - Iran intends to go ahead and build more nuclear power plants despite U.S. accusations the Islamic Republic is pursuing weapons of mass destruction, newspapers yesterday quoted its atomic energy chief as saying.
The new projects would be in addition to a nuclear plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast being built with Russian help, a project that has infuriated Washington, which says Iran is part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iraq and North Korea.
"Iran has a long-term plan to build more nuclear power plants to expand its capacity by 6,000 MW by the next two decades," the Iran newspaper quoted the head of Iran's Atomic Enery Organisation, Gholamreza Aghazadeh as saying.
Russia approved plans in July to construct up to six more nuclear power reactors and expand conventional power stations in the Islamic Republic. Iran, the second biggest oil producer in OPEC and with the second biggest gas reserves in the world, says the nuclear plant is for purely civilian power generation.
"Iran has always condemned access to weapons of mass destruction on the part of any country," Aghazadeh said on Monday in a speech at the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.
"Iran has always emphasised the full implementation of the Nuclear Non-Prolifration Treaty by all IAEA members and criticised those countries which have refused to join it," he said.
Aghazadeh welcomed cooperation by other countries in building nuclear reactors in Iran and called for greater IAEA participation to ensure plant safety.
The United States has heaped criticism on the Bushehr plans despite Russian assurances to Washington that its cooperation with Tehran would not lead to nuclear proliferation problems.
Iran says Bushehr will be subject to strict monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
-------- iraq
Evidence on Iraq Challenged
Experts Question if Tubes Were Meant for Weapons Program
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36348-2002Sep18?language=printer
A key piece of evidence in the Bush administration's case against Iraq is being challenged in a report by independent experts who question whether thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes recently sought by Iraq were intended for a secret nuclear weapons program.
The White House last week said attempts by Iraq to acquire the tubes point to a clandestine program to make enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. But the experts say in a new report that the evidence is ambiguous, and in some ways contradicts what is known about Iraq's past nuclear efforts.
The report, from the Institute for Science and International Security, also contends that the Bush administration is trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to interpret the evidence. The report, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, was authored by David Albright, a physicist who investigated Iraq's nuclear weapons program following the 1991 Persian Gulf War as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection team. The institute, headquartered in Washington, is an independent group that studies nuclear and other security issues.
"By themselves, these attempted procurements are not evidence that Iraq is in possession of, or close to possessing, nuclear weapons," the report said. "They do not provide evidence that Iraq has an operating centrifuge plant or when such a plant could be operational."
The controversy stems from shipments to Iraq of specialized aluminum metal that were seized en route by governments allied with the United States. A U.S. intelligence official confirmed that at least two such shipments were seized within the past 14 months, although he declined to give details. The Associated Press, citing sources familiar with the shipments, reported that one originated in China and was intercepted in Jordan.
The shipments sparked concern among U.S. intelligence analysts because of the potential use of such tubes in centrifuges, fast-spinning machines used in making enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. High-strength, heat-resistant metals are needed for centrifuge casings as well as for the rotors, which turn at up to 1,000 rotations per minute.
There is no evidence that any of the tubes reached Iraq. But in its white paper on Iraq released to the United Nations last week, the Bush administration cited the seized shipments as evidence that Iraq is actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said in a televised interview that the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."
Since then, U.S. officials have acknowledged differing opinions within the U.S. intelligence community about possible uses for the tubes -- with some experts contending that a more plausible explanation was that the aluminum was meant to build launch tubes for Iraq's artillery rockets.
"But the majority view, held by senior officials here, is that they were most likely intended for gas centrifuges," one U.S. intelligence official said in an interview.
The new report questions that conclusion on several grounds, most of them technical. It says the seized tubes were made of a kind of aluminum that is ill-suited for welding. Other specifications of the imported metal are at odds with what is known about Iraq's previous attempts to build centrifuges. In fact, the report said, Iraq had largely abandoned aluminum for other materials, such as specialized steel and carbon fiber, in its centrifuges at the time its nuclear program was destroyed by allied bombers in the Gulf War.
According to Albright, government experts on nuclear technology who dissented from the Bush administration's view told him they were expected to remain silent. Several Energy Department officials familiar with the aluminum shipments declined to comment.
----
U.N. Nuclear Inspectors Know Where to Look in Iraq
Reuters
Thursday, September 19, 2002
By Louis Charbonneau
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41208-2002Sep19?language=printer
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations top nuclear weapons inspector said Thursday his team was armed with information that will help them look for signs of a clandestine atomic weapons program in Iraq.
It has been nearly four years since weapons inspectors from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency left Iraq, only hours before the United States and Britain began bombing.
Under threat of a U.S. military attack, Iraq agreed this week to the unconditional return of the U.N. arms inspectors. Although the U.N. Security Council has yet to send the weapons inspectors back to Baghdad, the inspectors say they are ready to go.
Jacques Baute, head of the U.N. agency's Iraq Action Team, said the four-year hiatus -- during which detection technology and analytical tools and software have improved dramatically -- has not been wasted time.
"We've used the last four years to analyze in detail the masses of data that we had collected (from 1991 to 1998)," Baute told reporters at the agency's Vienna headquarters. "We have a plan. ... We are ready to leave at short notice."
He said the team has photographs, soil and water samples, as well as hundreds of hours of video footage, all of which has been painstakingly analyzed.
When the team left in 1998, it concluded that while there was no indication Iraq had produced a nuclear weapon, it had achieved many major steps on the path to constructing one.
Asked if the commercial satellite imagery of locations in Iraq which the agency has been collecting recently have given Baute and his team clues of where to look, Baute said there were suspicious locations that would be examined.
"We've been using satellite imagery for more than two and half years, and we've registered some changes," he said, adding that they would need on-site inspections to determine whether specific facilities had been used for making nuclear weapons.
'A QUESTION OF FACTS'
The agency's 18-member Iraq action team handles all nuclear-related issues. The New York-based U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission looks after biological and chemical arms and missile technology.
Baute said he had no idea when the Security Council would give them the green light to head to Iraq and start work.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Thursday that U.N. arms inspectors can "easily determine" whether Iraq is pursuing weapons of mass destruction.
"It's not a question of trust or mistrust. It's a question of facts," Ivanov told reporters ahead of Pentagon talks with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Once the approval from the Security Council arrives, Baute and his men can be on the ground almost immediately. But it would take several months before they could begin presenting a coherent picture of any hidden nuclear weapons program.
"It certainly won't be after the first week," he said.
Responding to criticisms that the team was preparing for a "mission impossible" and would never get the cooperation necessary for proper inspections, Baute disagreed.
"We can find things even without full cooperation," he said. "It's quite difficult to erase all the traces when you're dealing with significant amounts of nuclear material."
The Iraq team is completely separate from another agency inspection team, which makes yearly visits to a single and sealed nuclear waste storage site in Iraq. Those inspections are not connected to the agency's weapons team for Iraq and have no mandate from the U.N. Security Council to carry out inspections of other sites.
-------- korea
Koizumi: N.Korea to Allow IAEA Nuclear Inspections
By REUTERS
September 19, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-korea-north-nuclear-japan.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea said at a summit with Japan this week that it would allow international inspectors into the country to examine its nuclear program, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday.
``North Korea ... said it would allow inspections, including by the International Atomic Energy Agency,'' Koizumi said in a speech in Tokyo.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reassured Koizumi in talks on Tuesday that Pyongyang would honor all its international pledges concerning its nuclear program, but Koizumi's comments were the first public confirmation that the pledge included inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Some analysts believe North Korea could be using its nuclear energy program to develop nuclear weapons and President Bush has said the country was part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iraq and Iran.
Iraq agreed last week to allow in nuclear inspectors, a move that may have put pressure on North Korea to do the same. No firm date has been set for the start of the Iraqi inspections.
A 1994 U.S.-North Korean deal froze the North's suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two western-financed nuclear reactors and annual supplies of fuel oil.
Under that agreement, Pyongyang undertook to allow in IAEA inspectors, but it has yet to do so.
----
U.N. Nuclear Agency Ready for N.Korea Inspections
September 19, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-energy-korea-iaea.html
VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said on Thursday it was ready to begin inspecting North Korea's nuclear program, but was awaiting direct contact with Pyongyang to confirm that inspectors would be allowed in.
Earlier on Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that North Korea would permit inspections by the U.N.'s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agencyunder a 1994 deal North Korea struck with the United States.
``Right now we are trying to contact the North Korean mission here to confirm this and find out how it will translate into tangible progress and practical steps toward fully implementing its...agreement with the IAEA (to allow inspections),'' IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told Reuters.
``We're ready and have the inspectors in place,'' she added. ``We have received only information from the Japanese. But we expect an initial contact with North Korea this afternoon.''
The U.S.-North Korea deal froze Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for two Western-financed nuclear reactors and annual supplies of fuel oil.
Although North Korea was required to permit IAEA inspections under that agreement, it has yet to do so.
-------- russia
Russia Struggles with Post-Soviet Nuclear Legacy
By Sergei Blagov
September 19, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-19-05.asp
MOSCOW, Russia,Russian authorities have pledged to build new storage facilities to tackle the country's nuclear waste mess and import waste from overseas. On Tuesday, Russia's Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev was quoted by the official RIA news agency as saying that Russia has started construction of a new waste storage facility with capacity of 33,000 tons.
Russian Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Yurievich Rumyantsev(Photo courtesy Kurchatov Institute)
Rumyantsev did not reveal the location of the new storage facility. There is speculation that it is in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia being built as an extension of existing major facilities. Rumyantsev only elaborated that it would be "dry" storage.
Environmental activists have argued that Russia's largest waste storage facility, Krasnoyarsk-26, has only about 3,000 tons of unused capacity, while Russia's Atomic Power Ministry, Minatom, wants to permit other nations to pay to send more than 10,000 tons of their radioactive waste for reprocessing and storage in Russia.
Apart from nuclear waste import plans, Russia now faces immense challenges in dealing with its post-Soviet nuclear legacy, notably rusting nuke submarines. Minatom has announced that the Russian navy had decommissioned a total of 189 nuclear submarines, but 126 were still waiting to be scrapped.
Russia's Far Eastern regions face particularly serious nuclear waste problems. The Pacific Fleet's 75 decommissioned nuclear submarines are still stranded in harbors, of which 45 are waiting for nuclear fuel to be unloaded from their reactors.
It was environmental organizations such as the Norwegian Bellona Foundation who first warned the world in 1995 about these submarines, tied to their docks still loaded with nuclear fuel.
At the time, the Bellona report prompted charges of treason against Bellona's Aleksandr Nikitin, a former officer in the Russian Navy, who was finally acquitted of these charges in December 1999.
Nuclear submarines of the Victor, Alfa and Oscar classes are stationed at the base facility in Bolshaya Lopatka. This facility is located on the eastern side of the Litsa Fjord, directly across from Andreeva Bay. (Photo and front page photo courtesy Bellona)
But recently, Minatom has declared that the problem of these submarines must be solved as a priority.
The greatest source of danger has been reported from the submarine PM-32, located in a Kamchatka harbor. It is being used as a provisional storage facility for spent nuclear fuel from other submarines.
This year, Navy experts are expected to unload spent nuclear fuel from 20 nuclear submarines and completely dismantle 17.
On Tuesday, Russia's Deputy Nuclear Power Minister Valery Lebedev announced at an international conference on nuclear security in Vladivostok that the Pacific Fleet's three decommissioned nuclear submarines are so dangerous that nuclear fuel cannot be unloaded from their reactors.
In 2003, a sarcophagus is to be built for two of these subs in Razboinik Bay at an estimated cost of $18 million, Lebedev was quoted as saying by RIA.
Last March, Russian media alleged that a decommissioned nuclear submarine had recently sank in Krasheninnikov Bay on Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East.
Russian naval officials dismissed claims of a nuclear incident in Krasheninnikov Bay, although they conceded that such incidents had taken place back in 1997 and 1999.
Russia's North also faces the challenge of dealing with decommissioned nuclear submarines. Earlier this week, Viktor Akhunov, head of the of ecology and decommissioning department at Minatom, conceded that the rusting hulls of 39 nuclear vessels pose the greatest danger to the environment in Arctic.
Since 1994, a total of 29 trainloads of nuclear waste have been brought from emergency storage in Andreyev Guba on the Kola Peninsula to the Mayak reprocessing facility near Chelyabinsk. Waste from some 100 reactors is being temporarily stored in Andreyev Guba. All the waste is due to be removed from the Kola region by 2007.
It is widely accepted that Russia now faces a longer term safety problem as its existing nuclear waste storage facilities are getting closer to being filled to capacity. Russia's scientists and officials agree the country urgently needs to monitor and control the post-Soviet nuclear waste legacy. Environmentalists, however, cast doubts on the effectiveness of the governmental programs to tackle the mess.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- maryland
Calvert Cliffs Cited by NRC
By Raymond McCaffrey and Michael Amon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page SM02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31820-2002Sep17?language=printer
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission cited the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant for violating safety regulations governing the operation of emergency sirens.
The citation stems from a November 2001 test when the 49 sirens in Calvert County that are within 10 miles of the plant failed to sound. Though the failure was tied to a computer problem at the county's Emergency Operations Center, Calvert Cliffs was still bound by the NRC rules requiring working warning systems.
"We agree with the finding and at the time that this happened last November . . . we worked very closely with the Calvert County emergency planning folks to resolve their computer issue," said Angela Walters, a Calvert Cliffs spokeswoman.
"Ultimately we're responsible for making sure that we can notify the public in a timely fashion in the unlikely event of an emergency."
The NRC requires testing of the sirens, which are designed to alert the public in an emergency to tune to a particular radio station for information. The NRC reported in a written statement that it requires that "members of the public within the emergency planning zone be notified within about 15 minutes from the time that state and local officials are notified of an emergency condition." The federal regulators also termed "the issue to be of low to moderate importance."
"There's no immediate safety concern," said Diane Screnci, an NRC spokeswoman. "They did a retest and 100 percent of the sirens sounded."
The remaining sirens within the 10-mile radius -- 17 in St. Mary's County and six in Dorchester County across the Chesapeake Bay -- worked during the first test, according to a plant official.
The plant conducts weekly and quarterly testing to identify individual sirens that might need maintenance.
-------- washington
After decades of setbacks, construction begins on radioactive waste plant
Thursday, September 19, 2002
By Linda Ashton,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/09/09192002/ap_48478.asp and
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/national/19HANF.html
RICHLAND, Wash. - In a scrubby sagebrush desert not far from the Columbia River, lethal leftovers from the Cold War era are finally about to be cleaned up.
After a decade of fits and starts, construction has begun on a $4 billion waste treatment complex at the Hanford nuclear reservation, the biggest environmental cleanup project in the country.
Environmental advocates say it's none too soon. At least 67 of Hanford's 177 underground tanks, some of them decrepit and well past their intended service lives, have leaked more than 1 million gallons of radioactive brew into the soil. The waste has contaminated the aquifer, and the tanks are just seven miles from the Columbia River, which borders Hanford.
"There's a lot at stake," said John Britton, a spokesman for Bechtel National, which was hired to rescue the stranded project last year after the previous contractor's cost estimates doubled to $15.2 billion.
State regulators have squabbled with the Energy Department over the project since the early 1990s, when the department scuttled a plan to turn some of the waste into grout and bury it in sealed containers. The agencies later argued over missed deadlines and uncertain federal budgets, until a kind of detente was achieved.
"Right now our focus is on getting the thing built," said Sheryl Hutchison, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology.
The new plant will turn radioactive waste from plutonium production into more manageable glass cylinders. The process, called vitrification, mixes radioactive waste with glass-forming materials, then melts them at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to make a molten glass that is poured into canisters for long-term storage.
The most radioactive glass will end up at some kind of national repository, likely Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where it will take 10,000 years to decay. The less radioactive waste will be buried in trenches in the 560-square-mile reservation here.
But exactly how much of the nearly 54 million gallons of radioactive waste will be turned into glass is still being debated within the Energy Department. The Bush administration wants the agency to study less expensive but still effective ways to treat low-activity radioactive waste.
"There's a lot of concern they'll not empty those tanks," Hutchison said.
Another source of concern is an Energy Department plan to reclassify some highly radioactive residual waste at several sites, including Hanford, which could mean it would be left in the tanks. The Natural Resources Defense Council and two Indian tribes are suing the Energy Department in federal court in Idaho over the plan.
Roy Schepens, the new manager for the Energy Department's Office of River Protection, which is overseeing the project, wouldn't comment on the litigation. But he said he's considering a number of alternatives for low-activity waste, including a technology that uses superheated steam to treat waste and turn it into a cat litter-like substance, and bulk vitrification, where waste is turned into glass in an existing container rather than transferred to one later. Any such plans would have to be approved by state regulators.
For now, the focus is on constructing the plant. In 2005, the plant should be ready for nonradioactive testing, and in 2007, "hot" testing is scheduled to begin.
Crews at a test facility will use safe, simulated waste to find the best way to remove the radioactive mix of liquid, salt cake and sludge from the tanks.
Plutonium was made at the site for more than 40 years for the nation's nuclear arsenal, including the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki during World War II.
Hutchison said the Energy Department and its contractors are making good progress on the cleanup, which is being closely watched. The legal decree governing cleanup at Hanford sets a goal of retrieving 99 percent of the waste from the tanks, or as much as is technically feasible, and treating the waste by 2028.
"I intend to beat the 2028 date," Schepens said.
-------- us politics
Bush to seek 'go' for strike within two days
September 19 2002
AFP
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/19/1032054897471.html
President George W Bush said today he would go to US lawmakers with a resolution against Iraq in the next 48 hours, even as the UN Security Council remained deeply divided over how to confront the regime of Saddam Hussein.
The US president called Saddam "more and more a threat to world peace", after being caught flatfooted by Iraq's surprise offer earlier this week to unconditionally allow UN arms inspectors to return after a four-year stand-off.
Bush has scorned the Iraqi offer as a ploy, while Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned the US Congress that Iraq posed the most "immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world".
Rumsfeld's testimony to the US House Armed Services Committee marked the opening salvo in what is expected to be a US campaign for a UN resolution authorising use of force against Iraq.
Iraq and the UN, meanwhile, were to continue talks in Vienna in October on the terms allowing arms inspectors to ensure Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction, in violation of the 1991 ceasefire accords which ended the Gulf War.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed to big powers to "keep up the pressure" on Iraq to ensure Saddam Hussein makes good on his pledge to allow the weapons experts to pursue the disarmament effort.
"It's the pressure that has brought him (Saddam) to this position," Blair said.
Britain has been as scornful of Saddam as Bush, even after Monday's offer, while the other three permanent members of the Security Council - China, France and Russia, want Baghdad to be given a chance.
"This is an important moment for our country and for the international community to work together," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who heads the opposition Democrats, told reporters after meeting with Bush.
The legislators face a race against the clock to hurry through a resolution before they adjourn in October to campaign for Congressional elections in November. Democrats had earlier warned it could take a long time before Congress would act.
The White House has repeatedly insisted the president has not decided whether to go to war against Saddam, and today it was still unclear how the resolution would be worded.
Washington has met Baghdad's offer on the inspectors with scorn, steadfastly sticking to its goal to remove Saddam Hussein from power in its next step in the self-declared "war on terrorism".
"It's his latest ploy, his latest attempt not to be held accountable for defying the United Nations," Bush told reporters. "He's not going to fool anybody. We've seen him before."
"We'll remind the world that, by defying resolutions, he's become more and more of a threat to world peace."
The world "must rise up and deal with this threat, and that's what we expect the Security Council to do," the president said of the need for a strict new UN resolution.
Bush's tough stance was boosted by a new opinion poll. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey showed that 93 per cent of respondents believed the United Nations should pass a resolution imposing a deadline on Iraq to submit to weapons inspections or face grave consequences.
Rumsfeld reeled off a list of past Iraqi aggression, and said: "What has not changed is Iraq's drive to acquire those weapons of mass destruction, and the fact that every approach that the United Nations has taken to stop Iraq's drive has failed.
"This is a critical moment for our country and for the world. Our resolve is being put to the test. It is a test unfortunately the world's free nations have failed before in recent history with unfortunate consequences," he said.
As Rumsfeld was beginning his statement, two protesters briefly disrupted the session chanting "inspections, not war" before they were led from the room.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri called on close ally Russia to "intervene" to prevent the adoption by the UN of a US-sponsored resolution on arms inspections in Iraq.
"Iraq wishes to see Russia and all other countries... intervene to deprive the United States of the international cover it is seeking for its aggression" against Iraq, he said.
Former UN weapons inspector, Australian Richard Butler, echoed some of Washington's scepticism today.
"'Come back to the country without conditions' sounds good, but what we really needed to hear (was that) you can inspect without conditions," said Butler, who headed the team that was pulled out in 1998 shortly before intensive US and British bombing of Iraq, whom they accused of failing to cooperate with the UN teams.
Pope John Paul II stepped into the fray and hailed the "goodwill" of Saddam and urged world leaders to listen to the Iraqi leader.
"I urge you to continue to pray to the Saviour to enlighten the leaders of nations, to support demonstrations of goodwill and lead humanity, already afflicted by so much pain, to relations free of war and violence," he said Wednesday at the Vatican.
In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a vehement opponent of unilateral or UN-authorised strikes on Iraq, said military action was now unnecessary given the Iraqi offer.
"We must seize the opportunity. Falling back on the old positions will not help now," Schroeder told the daily General Anzeiger, in its edition to appear Thursday.
Asked if a military strike on Iraq was now "superfluous," he agreed. "That is correct."
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was meet for the second time this week with Sabri as the top UN arms inspector prepared to brief the Security Council on practical aspects of restarting work in Iraq.
The chief UN arms inspector, Hans Blix, was to go to the Council on Thursday to speak on the practical arrangements for taking up the Iraqi offer.
----
Bush Sends Congress a Proposed Resolution on Iraq
New York Times
September 19, 2002
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/international/19CND-PREXY.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - President Bush formally asked Congress today for support in doing whatever he deems necessary to disarm Iraq and overthrow its president, Saddam Hussein.
"If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force," Mr. Bush told reporters in the Oval Office.
He called once again for the United Nations to prove its mettle, indeed its very relevance, by enforcing previous Security Council resolutions and forcing Iraq to disarm. "And if the United Nations Security Council won't deal with the problem, the United States and our friends will," Mr. Bush said.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were on Capitol Hill this afternoon to reinforce the president's message.
"We now see that a proven menace, like Saddam Hussein, in possession of weapons of mass destruction could empower a few terrorists to threaten millions of innocent people," Mr. Powell told the House International Relations Committee. "President Bush is fully determined to deal with this threat. This administration is determined to defeat it. I believe the American people would have us do no less."
Mr. Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that air power alone could not wipe out Iraqi weapons installations.
"We simply do not know where all, or even a large portion, of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities are," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "We do know where a fraction of them are. Of the facilities we do know, not all are vulnerable to attack from the air." Mr. Rumsfeld testified Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee.
The United States has encountered strong reservations from Russia and France, two Security Council members with veto power. Those reservations were underlined today, when the Russian defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, conferred with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.
Mr. Ivanov told reporters he thought inspections "can easily establish" whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld have often expressed deep skepticism about the efficacy of inspections, and Mr. Rumsfeld stood silent during Mr. Ivanov's remarks.
The president sought today to dispel any notion that he was asking for a "blank check," as one questioner put it. He said he appreciated the support of legislators in both parties and looked forward to "a good, constructive debate in Congress."
The Senate's Democratic majority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, adopted the same tone today. "It is my strong desire, as I've noted now on several occasions, to work on one resolution, to have a bipartisan resolution that would be taken up in both the House and the Senate," Mr. Daschle told reporters on Capitol Hill.
"We don't want to be a rubber stamp, but we do want to be helpful and we want to be supportive," Mr. Daschle said. "So we'll look at what the administration is proposing and make our own determination as to whether it's something that we can support as well."
The president has given every indication lately that he wants to move swiftly and decisively on Iraq, so the fact that he sent the resolution to Capitol Hill today was not a surprise.
Since Friday is often a travel day for lawmakers, and since Congressional leaders in both parties have indicated they want to act on Iraq well before the Nov. 5 elections, the fact that he conveyed the resolution today made sense from a purely practical standpoint and did not signal that any decision was imminent.
"The most important word I heard inside today from the president was the word `if,' " Representative John McHugh, a New York Republican, said after an early-morning meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House. "He made it repeatedly clear that this resolution is not intended as a declaration of war, it is not intended as an immediate prior step to aggression."
Mr. McHugh was one of several lawmakers from both parties who met with the president this morning.
While both the White House and Congressional leaders have emphasized that the United States will take no momentous steps without due deliberation, both the president and Mr. Daschle reiterated today that they want Mr. Hussein out of power.
What he calls "regime change" is "the policy of the government," Mr. Bush said today.
On that score, there is wide agreement between the White House and many lawmakers. "Many of us have advocated regime change for 10 years, so it's nothing new for us us to be supporting regime change now," Mr. Daschle said.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Daschle both said on Wednesday that Mr. Hussein's recent offer to have United Nations weapons inspectors return to Iraq was nothing more than "a ploy." So it was virtually certain that they would not be moved by Iraq's assertion today, before the United Nations, that the country is free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
"Our country is ready to receive any scientific experts, accompanied by politicians you choose to represent any one of your countries, to tell us which places and scientific installations they would wish to see," the Iraqi foreign minister, Naji Sabri, said, quoting the Iraqi president.
Continuing to quote Mr. Hussein, the foreign minister went on to say that "the American propaganda machine, along with official statements of lies, distortion and falsehood" was being used for "inciting the American public against Iraq, and pushing them to accept the U.S. administration's schemes of aggression as a fait accompli."
The White House immediately dismissed the Iraqi speech. "Sadly, this speech presented nothing new and was more of the same," the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said. "It was a disappointing failure in every respect. This speech is an attempt to lure the world down the same road that the world has traveled before, and in that it represents a disappointing failure by Iraq."
Mr. Bush has been contemptuous of Iraqi assurances. Speaking in the Oval Office even before the Iraqi official's address, Mr. Bush said, "I don't trust Iraq, and neither should the free world."
----
Text: Bush, Powell on the U.N. and Iraq
eMediaMillWorks
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38848-2002Sep19?language=printer
BUSH: Good morning. I appreciate the secretary of state coming by to brief the vice president and me and Condoleezza Rice about our progress in working with the United Nations, convincing the United Nations Security Council to firmly deal with a threat to world peace.
Before we talk about that, I do want to express our condolences to those who lost their life in Israel. It's been back-to-back suicide bombings. We strongly condemn terror. We strongly condemn violence. And we continue to send our message to the good people of that region, that if you're interested in peace, that if you want people to be able to grow up in a peaceful world, all parties must do everything they can to reject and stop violence.
At the United Nations Security Council, it is very important that the members understand that the credibility of the United Nations is at stake, that the Security Council must be firm in its resolve to deal with a true threat to world peace--and that is Saddam Hussein. But the United Nations Security Council must work with the United States and Britain and other concerned parties to send a clear message that we expect Saddam to disarm.
And if the United Nations Security Council won't deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will. That's the message the secretary of state has delivered forcefully, it's a message that he will continue to carry.
And, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your hard work. You're doing a fine job. And we're proud of your efforts.
I'll be glad to answer a few calls--answers, starting with Ron (ph).
QUESTION: How many of our friends are willing to join the United States in this effort? Ron (ph), I think time will tell. I think you're going to see a lot of nations--that a lot of nations love freedom. They understand the threat. They understand that the credibility of the United Nations is at stake. They heard me loud and clear when I said, ``Either you can be the United Nations, a capable body, a body able to keep the peace, or you can be the League of Nations.'' We're confident that people will follow our lead.
Campbell (ph)?
QUESTION: Mr. President...
BUSH: Good to see you, Campbell (ph) for starters. Glad you're here. Finally showed up.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
The chief weapons inspectors (OFF-MIKE) Security Council (OFF-MIKE) already getting some reports that we just talked to Iraq and said they're limiting access to certain sites.
BUSH: And if the United Nations Security Council won't deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will. That's the message the secretary of state has delivered forcefully, it's a message that he will continue to carry.
And, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your hard work. You're doing a fine job. And we're proud of your efforts.
I'll be glad to answer a few calls--answers, starting with Ron (ph).
QUESTION: How many of our friends are willing to join the United States in this effort?
BUSH: Ron (ph), I think time will tell. I think you're going to see a lot of nations--that a lot of nations love freedom. They understand the threat. They understand that the credibility of the United Nations is at stake. They heard me loud and clear when I said, ``Either you can be the United Nations, a capable body, a body able to keep the peace, or you can be the League of Nations.'' We're confident that people will follow our lead.
Campbell (ph)?
QUESTION: Mr. President...
BUSH: Good to see you, Campbell (ph) for starters. Glad you're here. Finally showed up.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President.
The chief weapons inspectors (OFF-MIKE) Security Council (OFF-MIKE) already getting some reports that we just talked to Iraq and said they're limiting access to certain sites.
QUESTION: Are these reports true? And do you think...
BUSH: I haven't gotten a report from what he intends to say, but here, let me give you just some general observations: First of all, there are no negotiations to be held with Iraq. They have nothing to negotiate. They're the people who said that they would not have weapons of mass destruction. The negotiations are over. It is up to the U.N. Security Council to lay out resolutions that confirms what Iraq has already agreed to, see.
Secondly, I don't trust Iraq, and neither should the free world. For 11 years, they have deceived the world. They have said, ``We'll conform to resolutions.'' They never conformed to resolutions. They never conformed to the agreement that they laid out 11 years ago; 16 times they've defied security resolutions. And so, the burden of proof is--must be placed squarely on their shoulders. But there's no negotiations about whether or not they've been telling the truth or not.
QUESTION: Mr. President, are you going to send Congress your proposed resolution today?
BUSH: I am.
QUESTION: Are you asking for a blank check, sir?
BUSH: I am sending a suggested language for a resolution, that I've asked for Congress to support, to enable the administration to keep the peace, and we look forward to a good constructive debate in Congress.
I appreciate the fact that the leadership recognizes we've got to move before the elections. I appreciate the strong support we're getting from both Republicans and Democrats, and I look forward to working with them.
QUESTION: How important is it that...
(CROSSTALK)
BUSH: That'll be part of the resolution--authorization to use force. If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force. This will be--it's is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, ``We support the administration's ability to keep the peace.'' That's what this is all about.
QUESTION: Well, will you...
(CROSSTALK)
BUSH: Yes, that's the policy of the government.
----
German minister's comparison of Bush to Hitler sparks outrage
09/19/2002
Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-09-19-bush-germany-hitler_x.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - As tensions rise between the United States and Germany over differences on Iraq policy, the White House on Thursday called a German government minister's comparison of President Bush to Adolph Hitler "outrageous and inexplicable."
Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin told a small group of labor union members on Wednesday that Bush was going after Iraq to divert attention from domestic problems. "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did that," the German newspaper, Schwaebisches Tagblatt, quoted her as saying.
The minister called the report misleading but did not deny the remarks. Opposition conservatives vying to defeat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats in Sunday's parliamentary elections called for her resignation.
With the balloting approaching, Schroeder has offered repeated and outspoken opposition to Bush's drive for action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, creating discord between the two allies.
Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer sought to downplay the impact on the relationship between the countries, but reacted strongly to the minister's remarks.
"The United States and Germany have a very long and valuable relationship, and relations between the people of the United States and Germany are very important to Americans," Fleischer said. "But this statement by the justice minister is outrageous and inexplicable."
----
Hitler's undemocratic mandate
Washington Times
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
September 19, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20020919-98869636.htm
I find it offensive that Tony Blankley accused 80 million Germans of enabling Hitler to kill 50 million people ("The imperial era begins," Op-Ed, September 11). The facts say otherwise. Hitler was enabled by big business, if anything, and in 1933 burned down the German parliament - the Reichstag - for fear of losing the upcoming elections.
The Nazi party never received more than 40 percent of the national vote. After Hitler established a dictatorship and created a police state, votes no longer mattered.
ED BOSWELL
Long Beach, Calif.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
U.S. Company to Take Over Karzai Safety
By JAMES DAO
New York Times
September 19, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/international/asia/19SECU.html?ex=1033456358&ei=1&en=286920e1ae690eb3
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 - The State Department plans to hire a private company to help protect President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, a job currently handled by American Special Operations soldiers.
The plan has come under fire from senior lawmakers in Congress who argued that protecting Mr. Karzai is too important to be entrusted to a private contractor. Two members of Mr. Karzai's cabinet have been murdered this year and the president himself was the target of an assassination attempt earlier this month.
In a letter sent Tuesday to the State Department and the Pentagon, Representatives Henry J. Hyde, Republican of Illinois, and Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, urged the two departments to combine forces to protect Mr. Karzai rather than hire a private company.
"Experience with such contractors elsewhere leads us to believe that the presence of commercial vendors acting in this capacity would send a different message to the Afghan people and to President Karzai's adversaries: that we are not serious enough about our commitment to Afghanistan to dispatch U.S. personnel," the lawmakers said in their letter.
Mr. Hyde is the chairman of the House International Relations Committee and Mr. Lantos is the ranking Democrat. The State Department announced last month, before the assassination attempt against Mr. Karzai, that its Diplomatic Security Service would take over responsibility for protecting Mr. Karzai from the military. At the time, administration officials argued that diplomatic security agents were better suited than soldiers for protecting a head of state.
But today Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said the department needed to hire an outside firm because its security agents do not have the proper training or weaponry to deal with the kinds of combat conditions that exist in Afghanistan.
"Diplomatic Security Service is a civilian law enforcement and security service," Mr. Boucher told reporters. "It operates in an environment where the rule of law governs; that is not necessarily the situation in Afghanistan."
Another State Department official said that the Diplomatic Security Service is stretched too thin to provide enough guards for Mr. Karzai's detail. The State Department was expected to assume responsibility for Mr. Karzai's protection later this month, but administration officials said that might be delayed.
The Diplomatic Security Service provides protection to the secretary of state, foreign ministers visiting the United States and American embassy officials overseas. The unit has about 1,000 special agents.
The State Department will also help train an Afghan security unit to protect the president, but that could take more than a year, officials said.
One firm the State Department is considering hiring is DynCorp of Reston, Va. The company has numerous government contracts, including ones for recruitment of retired police officers for United Nations peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and pilots for American-financed counterdrug operations in Colombia.
A former employee of a DynCorp unit sued the company last year, asserting that she had been unfairly fired after complaining that United Nations police officers and DynCorp employees frequented brothels in Bosnia at a time when the United Nations was attempting to eliminate prostitution rings. A British court ruled in her favor last month. DynCorp has said it fired the employee for misconduct.
-------- biological weapons
U.S. Drops Bid to Strengthen Germ Warfare Accord
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36677-2002Sep18?language=printer
The Bush administration has abandoned an international effort to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention against germ warfare, advising its allies that the United States wants to delay further discussions until 2006. A review conference on new verification measures for the treaty had been scheduled for November.
Less than a year after a State Department envoy abruptly pulled out of biowarfare negotiations in Geneva, promising that the United States would return with new proposals, the administration has concluded that treaty revisions favored by the European Union and scores of other countries will not work and should not be salvaged, administration officials said yesterday.
The decision, which has been conveyed to allies in recent weeks, has been greeted with warnings that the move will weaken attempts to curb germ warfare programs at a time when biological weapons are a focus of concern because of the war on terrorism and the administration's threats to launch a military campaign against Iraq. It also comes as the administration, which has angered allies by rejecting a series of multilateral agreements, is appealing to the international community to work with it in forging a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which has been ratified by the United States and 143 other countries, bans the development, stockpiling and production of germ warfare agents, but has no enforcement mechanism. Negotiations on legally binding measures to enforce compliance have been underway in Geneva for seven years.
The administration stunned its allies last December by proposing to end the negotiators' mandate, saying that while the treaty needed strengthening, the enforcement protocol under discussion would not deter enemy nations from acquiring or developing biological weapons if they were determined to do so. Negotiators suspended the discussions, saying they would meet again in November when U.S. officials said they would return with creative solutions to address the impasse.
Instead, U.S. envoys are now telling allies that the administration's position is so different from the views of the leading supporters of the enforcement protocol that a meeting would dissolve into public squabbling and should be avoided, administration officials said. Better, they said, to halt discussions altogether.
"It's based on an incorrect approach. Our concern is that it would be fundamentally ineffective," a State Department official said. Another administration official said the "best and least contentious" approach would be to hold a very brief meeting in November -- or even no meeting at all -- and talk again when the next review is scheduled four years from now.
Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons specialist, said the administration is making a mistake by halting collaborative work to strengthen the convention. "It sounds to me as though they've thrown the baby out with the bath water," said Smithson, an analyst at the Henry L. Stimson Center. "The contradiction between the rhetoric and what the administration is actually doing -- the gulf is huge. Not a day goes by when they don't mention the Iraq threat."
The Stimson Center is releasing a report today that criticizes the U.S. approach to the convention. Drawn from a review by 10 pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology experts, the document argues that bioweapons inspections can be effective with the right amount of time and the right science and urges the administration to develop stronger measures.
"To argue that this wouldn't be a useful remedy would just be a mistake. I think it's because they're looking through the wrong end of the telescope," said Matthew Meselson, a Harvard biologist who helped draft a treaty to criminalize biological weapons violations. "We're denying ourselves useful tools."
The administration has focused publicly on a half-dozen countries identified by the State Department as pursuing germ warfare programs. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said the existence of Iraq's bioweapons project is "beyond dispute." The U.S. government also believes Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Libya and Syria are developing such weapons, he said.
Meselson concurred with the administration's position that a limited enforcement provision for the bioweapons treaty could not provide confidence that countries are staying clean. But he said that a pact establishing standards and verification measures would deter some countries while also helping to build norms of international behavior.
Bolton, on the other hand, told delegates to last year's review conference that "the time for 'better-than-nothing' protocols is over. We will continue to reject flawed texts like the BWC draft protocol, recommended to us simply because they are the product of lengthy negotiations or arbitrary deadlines, if such texts are not in the best interests of the United States."
With only hours to go at the meeting, Bolton stopped U.S. participation in the final negotiations. He said of the resulting one-year delay, "This gives us time to think creatively on alternatives."
In Bolton's view, each country should develop criminal laws against germ warfare activities, develop export controls for dangerous pathogens, establish codes of conduct for scientists and install strict biosafety procedures. The administration has proposed that governments resolve disputes over biowarfare violations among themselves, perhaps through voluntary inspections or by referral to the United Nations secretary general.
Such an approach is "at best ineffectual," said the specialists gathered by the Stimson Center. At worst, they concluded, the approach could damage U.S. interests because it would not be structured to deliver "meaningful monitoring."
"If a challenge inspection system is not geared to pursue violators aggressively, then it does not serve U.S. security interests," the 65-page report states. The participants strongly favored establishing mandatory standards backed by penalties and "robust" inspections, which goes significantly further than the proposed protocol backed by the EU and other nations.
The State Department Web site has not yet been changed to reflect the change in policy. It says, "The United States is committed to strengthening the BWC as part of a comprehensive and multidisciplinary strategy for combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. . . . We would like to share these ideas with our international partners."
-------- business
Lockheed Martin awarded FBI contract
IN BRIEF
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Washington Post; Page E05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36954-2002Sep18?language=printer
• Lockheed Martin of Bethesda was awarded a five-year, $56 million FBI contract to update technology in the agency's Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg, W.Va. Under the contract, Lockheed will help modernize the information technology infrastructure for national crime-data systems, including for fingerprints and criminal histories. Lockheed will also establish an Advanced Technology Center in Fairmont, W.Va., to support the program. The contract could ultimately be worth more than $200 million, Lockheed said.
Compiled from reports by Washington Post staff writers, washingtonpost.com and Dow Jones News Service
-------- china
U.S., China in new naval dispute
Survey vessel in Yellow Sea accused of criminality The USNS Bowditch.
By Tammy Kupperman
NBC NEWS PRODUCER,
September 19, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/810165.asp?cp1=1
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - The Chinese and U.S. military are engaged in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse just off the coast of China, NBC News has learned. China is accusing a U.S. survey vessel off its coast of "criminal activity" in its waters, while the United States says the ship is operating in international waters, Pentagon officials say.
CHINA HAS PROTESTED the presence of the USNS Bowditch, an unarmed U.S. hydrographic survey ship, some 60 miles off China's coast in the Yellow Sea. While the Bowditch does map the ocean floor, it also listens underwater with its towed sonar system.
Pentagon officials said that last week Chinese reconnaissance aircraft began flying over the Bowditch, and a Chinese intelligence ship began trailing the U.S. survey ship.
Territorial waters are generally recognized to extend 12 miles from the shoreline. U.S. officials say the ship is clearly in international waters and has a right to be there. China, however, says the ship is in its "exclusive economic zone" - a maritime term that claims exclusive rights to economic exploitation in an area extending as far as 200 miles offshore. Advertisement Budget Travel
While officials say that none of the Chinese actions is considered dangerous, the Y8 and Y12 reconnaissance aircraft flew directly over the Bowditch for the first time on Thursday. Previously, the aircraft were staying several hundred yards away and 300 to 500 feet above the ship to monitor it, effectively drawing a large circle around it. The Chinese have warned the Bowditch that it is "engaging in criminal activity" in bridge-to-bridge communications. The Bowditch has not responded, officials said.
A Chinese fishing vessel damaged the towed sonar equipment, knocking off a hydrophone. It remains unclear, defense officials say, whether the fishing vessel hit the sonar deliberately.
The encounter "is part of a continuing testing of wills about the scope and location of these (U.S. military) activities," says Jonathan Pollack, a China specialist and chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the Naval War College.
Under U.N. treaties that govern exclusive economic zones, foreign ships can pass through the area, but not engage in specified economic activity such as oil exploration or fishing.
The debate, says Pollack, is over military-related activities. "The U.S. claims it is on totally legitimate grounds, even with intelligence-related activities."
U.S. officials say they are watching this situation, but at this point no one is "too spun up" over it. According to one Pentagon official, "we've got a right to be there, and so do they - and to check us out."
The last time this happened with the Bowditch was in June 2001, according to a defense official. Unlike this time, last year a Chinese frigate "locked and loaded," so the unarmed Bowditch departed the area. This time, officials say that so far there aren't any armed Chinese warships or aircraft involved.
On April 1, 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 spy plane, forcing the EP-3 to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan island.
In the episode, leading to a low point in recent Sino-U.S. relations, the fighter crashed into the sea, killing the pilot. The 24-member crew of the U.S. plane was detained for 11 days before being released, leading the Bush administration to call a virtual halt to military cooperation with China.
U.S. military figures have said that China's surveillance of U.S. aircraft has since been less aggressive.
---- iran
Iranian Military Drafts Plans Against U.S.
Middle East Newsline,
September 19, 2002
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2002/september/09_19_2.html
NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iran has reported that its military has drafted plans to repel any U.S. attack.
Officials said the military's plans have already undergone simulations and exercises to ensure their feasibility. They said the military has proposed coordinated efforts by the army, navy and air force to form a rapid-response unit.
One scenario, officials said, is that the United States would launch an attack along the Iranian-Afghan border to flush out Al Qaida insurgents. Washington has accused Teheran of harboring hundreds of Al Qaida members who fled from Afghanistan.
"For America's recent threats, plans have been prepared which are being studied and completed," Iranian army commander Maj. Gen. Mohammed Salimi said. "The contexts of the plan to confront American threats by moving ground, air and naval forces of the army and carrying out drills, tests and war games have been prepared."
-------- israel / palestine
Israel Moves on Arafat's Compound After Bomber Kills 5
New York Times
September 19, 2002
By SERGE SCHMEMANN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/international/middleeast/19CND-ISRA.html
TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 19 - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a Tel Aviv bus outside the city's main synagogue today, killing five people and wounding scores. Several hours later, Israeli tanks and armored vehicles encircled Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah and demanded over loudspeakers that he surrender wanted men who were inside with him.
After an emergency meeting of the Israeli cabinet, the government said it had also made other ``operational decisions.'' The communiquÀe gave no details, but Israeli television said the military would impose further restrictions on Palestinian towns. Residents of Gaza also reported shelling from helicopters and tanks, but the targets were not immediately known.
The bombing attack was the second in less than 24 hours, shattering a stretch of 45 days in which there had been no terror attacks inside Israel. In that time, some new political and diplomatic initiatives had stirred faint hopes that the violence of the past 24 months was abating, and the question now was whether they would be stymied.
Israeli officials, however, insisted that the lull was largely the result of their severe clampdown and daily raids in the West Bank and Gaza. In those same six weeks, Palestinian officials said 75 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli operations, most of them civilians, and several Israelis were killed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Both Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the major Islamic militant organizations, claimed responsibility for the attack today, but there was no immediate indication whether it was a joint operation. Both groups have rejected all efforts by moderate Palestinian leaders to abandon attacks within Israel, and have threatened more attacks.
``The martyr operations will continue against the Zionists,'' said Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a senior political leader of Hamas. ``We are defending our people. The resistance will escalate.''
The police and witnesses said that the suicide bomber, described as a man with a mustache carrying a duffel bag, boarded the bus shortly before 1 p.m. on Allenby Street in central Tel Aviv, in a busy area full of shops and cafes. He immediately detonated his charge, killing the driver and shattering the front end of the bus, which rolled about 100 feet before coming to a halt.
The police said three men and two women died in the explosion, and more than 60 people were injured, 10 of them seriously.
The explosion was directly across the street from the Great Synagogue, Tel Aviv's main temple, which is protected by a tall concrete wall and suffered no damage. It was not known whether the bomber chose the spot because of the synagogue, because Allenby Street is normally busy at lunchtime, or because the No. 4 bus is one of the most heavily used in Tel Aviv.
``I was walking out of my warehouse, when suddenly there was an explosion,'' said Misha Yegolubov, a salesman at a piano store behind the bus stop. ``There was a great cloud of smoke over the bus. There was a woman on the bench with no face, and a man staggered past with terrible wounds. Then the police and ambulances rushed in.''
Even as the police, rescue workers and the Orthodox men who gather human remains for burial followed what has now become a gruesome routine, speculation began on how Israel would retaliate. Israel's Channel Two reported that shortly after the attack, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was overheard to say that Israel should throw Mr. Arafat out.
Within hours of the bombing, 10 tanks and several armored vehicles rolled into the Palestinian leader's badly battered compound, encountering no resistance. Palestinians inside the compound said the Israeli force demolished a dozen trailers the Palestinians had set up on the ruins of buildings destroyed in earlier raids.
In the evening, the full Israeli cabinet convened for the emergency meeting. It was closed, but Israeli reports said several hard-line ministers revived demands that Mr. Arafat be expelled to Gaza or abroad. The reports said intelligence and military officials reiterated their arguments against the measure as too incendiary, and, in the end, the reports said, all cabinet members, with the exception of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, agreed on intensifying the isolation of Mr. Arafat, who has been effectively cooped up since the start of the year in what remains of his compound.
Washington also reportedly reminded Israel of its agreement not to expel or harm Mr. Arafat. The Bush administration has sought to restrain the Israeli conflict while it seeks to build international support for a campaign against Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
The Tel Aviv attack followed another one on Wednesday near the northern Arab town of Umm el Fahm, in which a police officer was killed when he approached a suspicious man, the bomber, at a bus stop.
Before that, there had been several developments that seemed to indicate a changing mood. Most notable was a meeting of the Palestinian Parliament last week at which deputies openly assailed Mr. Arafat's leadership and forced him to fire his cabinet and to set new presidential and parliamentary elections for Jan. 20.
Then, earlier this week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and representatives of the United Nations, the European Community and Russia, acting as a coalition known as the Quartet, agreed in New York on a political road map toward the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005.
There had also been efforts by some senior officials of the Palestinian Authority to wrest an agreement from Islamic militants to abandon attacks within Israel.
Mr. Sharon, however, has consistently held Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to blame for all terror and violence, and his reaction today indicated he held firm to that view. ``Israel is engaged in a long and hard battle against a cruel and abject terrorism led by Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat who has set up a terrorist coalition,'' Mr. Sharon's office said in a statement.
The Palestinian Authority issued a statement condemning the attacks, and Palestinian officials argued that the bombings by Islamic militants were intended to torpedo whatever conciliatory moves were under way and that the Israeli response served that end.
Ghassan al-Khatib, a member of the Palestinian cabinet who was inside the compound with Mr. Arafat, said that Israel had not relented in its campaign against the Palestinians even when there were no suicide attacks.
Before the suicide attack, a 10-year-old Palestinian boy, Abdel Salam Sumreen, was shot dead in Ramallah from an Israeli tank while he was playing outside during a curfew. Earlier this week, one of two bombs planted in a Palestinian elementary school south of Hebron exploded, injuring five children. Israeli police said they have focused their investigation on Israeli militants.
The Israeli measures, Mr. Khatib said, ``give the impression that the Israeli cabinet is taking measures without taking into account what the Palestinians are doing or not doing.''
He added: ``Israel is always trying to achieve the destruction of the Palestinian Authority and all the agreements it signed. Hamas and Palestinian extremists, and extremists in Israel, are consolidating their efforts.''
An aide to Mr. Arafat, Nabil Aburdeineh, said by telephone from the compound that the Palestinians will not surrender the men demanded by Israel. The men were said to number 17, and to include the West Bank intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi.
``They are just looking for a pretext to continue their siege and attacks,'' he said.
The Israeli police chief, Shlomo Aharonishki, said recent weeks ``had given a false impression of calm, while terrorism has not dropped its guard and there have been constant attempts to strike.''
In Washington, President Bush interrupted a meeting on Iraq in the Oval Office to condemn the suicide bombings and express his condolences to the families of the victims.
On Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, Jacob Heym, an 87-year-old veteran of British service in World War II and Israeli service in the war of independence, stood surveying the rescue operations from his book shop just behind the site of the explosion. He was standing there when the bomb went off, shattering his plate glass window, he said, but he emerged unscathed.
``I saw the bus rolling under a cloud of smoke,'' he said. ``I saw men laid out on the sidewalk, I saw a heart that was still beating lying here.'' Did he believe this would ever happen here? ``Yes, I knew this could happen here, or anyplace else, unless we do what is necessary to reach a peace,'' he said.
--------
US Homeland Security sets up Israel liaison
Melissa Radler
Sep. 19, 2002
Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/PrinterFull&cid=1032275805081
NEW YORK In a boost to security cooperation between the US and Israel, the Bush administration's director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, has appointed a liaison to work directly with the Ministry of Internal Security, Minister Uzi Landau announced Thursday.
Landau, who met with Ridge in Washington for the third time since the September 11 attacks, also discussed the establishment of a liaison office in the newly formed Homeland Security Department, which is charged with preventing future attacks on the US and reducing the country's vulnerability to international terrorism.
"We have much to offer in terms of experience," said Landau yesterday at a meeting with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. "Basically, Israel serves today as the worldwide laboratory of international terrorism. If they succeed in Israel, they will export it to Europe, to the US, God forbid," he said.
Ridge appointed a senior staffer to work with the ministry during a Tuesday meeting with Landau at the White House, a Landau aide said. In addition, Landau invited Ridge to Israel to witness Israel's counterterror efforts up close.
While in Washington, Landau also met with a number of members of the House and Senate to discuss security cooperation, he said.
-------- landmines
Two Koreas Start Clearing DMZ Land mines
Reuters
Thursday, September 19, 2002
By Paul Eckert
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37236-2002Sep19?language=printer
DORASAN STATION, South Korea (Reuters) - South and North Korean troops marched into the Demilitarized Zone separating their countries Thursday to clear a path through minefields for rail and road links across the world's last Cold War frontier.
U.S. army observers and reporters watched as 100 South Korean troops with mine-clearing vehicles filed into the DMZ through a gate in high fences topped with razor wire.
A similar event was scheduled in the reclusive North, which has shown signs of coming out of its shell since the United States dubbed it a member of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran after declaring a war on terror.
"Neither of us know where the mines are," said South Korean lieutenant-colonel Kim Hye-won. "We are being very careful."
The soldiers' job is to clear a swathe of ground about 100 yards wide and 1.2 miles long to the midpoint of the DMZ while North Korean troops do the same on their side. They will then build a road, railway and power lines.
The same work will take place on the eastern coast of the peninsula, a rugged and thinly populated area which includes many of the two Koreas' most scenic mountains.
The DMZ is a no man's land littered with land mines buried during the 1950-53 Korean War and afterwards.
Under strict rules agreed to avoid incidents, the two Koreas' minesweepers will work on alternate days, with a limit of 100 soldiers per side at a time, each man allowed to carry only 30 rounds of ammunition.
OLD AND NEW MINES
Shifting during decades of floods has rendered maps of the mines useless and soldiers have been killed or wounded despite well-marked paths warning of the danger.
Guides on tours to the edge of the DMZ tell tourists that animals in the DMZ are limited to those too light to trigger the mines. Biologists count dozens of rare species in the DMZ.
"We are burying a history marked by the scars of war and the pain of division," South Korean Acting Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo told dignitaries at a ribbon-cutting ceremony a day earlier.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the Korean War ended in an armed truce.
This week's start to construction means routes closed for half a century could reopen by the end of the year.
A South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman said clearing the mines would take several months and winter weather toward the end of the year could hamper the work.
"Some of the mines are old, dating back to the Korean War, and some were placed recently," he said.
The spokesman said the number of mines in the zone was a state secret. But the local Yonhap news agency published an estimate that 1,500 mines must be cleared for the west coast corridor and another 400 in the east.
STUNNING DIPLOMATIC DEVELOPMENTS
Wednesday, fireworks marked ceremonies as the long-time rivals prepared to begin chipping away at their frontier.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac sent messages to South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung hailing the event.
China offered praise and ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who helped end communism in Eastern Europe, sent congratulations.
The rail links promise to join South Korea with Europe via both China and Russia, cutting freight costs for manufacturers along the route.
"On the occasion of the start of work on the railway lines, I will ask for ASEM members' interest and cooperation on the 'Iron Silk Road' linking Europe and Asia," Kim Dae-jung said, referring to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Copenhagen next week.
Prospects for running railways through one of the world's most isolated countries come as part of an astonishing array of diplomatic developments centered on North Korea this week.
At a summit in Pyongyang Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il apologized to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for the abduction of Japanese citizens and offered concessions on global security. Koizumi apologized for Japan's occupation of Korea before and during World War II.
Thursday, Koizumi told a news conference that North Korea had said at the summit it would allow international inspectors into the country to examine its nuclear program.
The rail idea began at an historic summit in June 2000 between the South's Kim Dae-jung and the North's Kim Jong-il, also held in Pyongyang.
-------- mideast
Peril to Mideast Allies Acknowledged
Rumsfeld Says Israel, Others Open to Iraqi Attack in Case of U.S. Military Action
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36616-2002Sep18?language=printer
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that U.S. military action against Iraq would leave Israel and other allies in the Middle East open to Iraqi attack, but, reflecting the strong desire of U.S. officials that Israel avoid getting drawn into the war, he added: "It would be in Israel's overwhelming interest not to get involved."
Rumsfeld's remarks, which came during congressional testimony, marked a rare instance in which a senior Bush administration official has commented publicly on a highly sensitive U.S. concern about a possible repercussion of going to war with Iraq -- igniting a broader Middle East war involving Israel and, perhaps, other Arab states.
During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the Israeli government acceded to U.S. arguments that Israel's entry would threaten the coalition against Iraq -- which included some Arab states -- and refrained from retaliating after being hit by Iraqi Scud missiles.
But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other senior Israeli officials have refused to rule out the possibility of retaliation this time. And while Sharon has kept a low profile on Iraq in recent weeks, the possibility that Iraq might try to strike Israel with chemical, biological or radiological weapons has led to intensive preparations in Israel.
"With respect to Israel, there is no question but that Iraq's neighbors, were there to be a conflict, would have a degree of vulnerability," Rumsfeld said in response to a question. "And there's also no question but that that would probably not last for a very long time."
At another point in the hearing, when a lawmaker noted recent U.S. measures to improve Israel's anti-missile defenses, Rumsfeld said: "There are other things that we're contemplating in the event that they become necessary, not just for Israel, but for some other neighboring countries." He did not elaborate.
Rumsfeld's remarks before the House Armed Services Committee touched on a wide range of issues confronting the United States as it considers military action against Iraq. His appearance was the first in a scheduled series by senior officials as the administration seeks to make its case about the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the need to confront it.
"We must think carefully before we authorize the use of military force," said Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), the committee's ranking Democrat, setting a tone of skepticism echoed by a number of Democrats on the panel.
Members pressed Rumsfeld during the 31/2-hour hearing on whether a war against Iraq would diminish the U.S. anti-terror campaign, whether sufficient thought had been given to what would be required to rebuild Iraq after the ouster of Hussein, and whether possible renewed U.N. inspections stood any chance of forestalling the administration's interest in military action.
Rumsfeld -- along with Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who testified beside him -- expressed skepticism that any U.N. weapons inspection effort could effectively stop Iraq's pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, given Iraq's evasiveness in the past and recent efforts to develop deeper and more numerous places to hide its weapons production and storage facilities.
"Iraq over the last decade has become a master of deception," Myers said. "They've gone underground, they've gone mobile, they combine biological and chemical weapons production with legitimate facilities."
Rumsfeld and Myers said waging war against Iraq would not distract from the war on terrorism, but would enhance it in view of Iraq's links to terrorism. And they noted that U.S. military capabilities are stronger and Iraqi forces are significantly weaker now than during the 1991 war that ousted Hussein's forces from Kuwait.
Rumsfeld said an offensive against Iraq would require the call-up of more National Guard and reserve members, although he declined to provide a number.
More than 70,000 reservists have been called to active duty to support anti-terrorism operations. The Pentagon has also blocked more than 20,000 service members in key specialties from leaving active duty.
But there is "not a chance," Rumsfeld said, that a draft would be needed to augment current forces. He noted that the military is having no problem recruiting enough qualified people.
-------- nato
Havel wants NATO to target 'new' evil
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 19, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020919-843444.htm
Czech President Vaclav Havel, meeting with President Bush yesterday in the Oval Office, called on NATO to redefine its mission to confront "a new kind of evil" in the international war against terrorism.
Mr. Havel, whose nation hosts a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in November, said NATO needs to target those who support terrorism.
"I think that now it would be important if NATO will [be] able to re-identify itself, to find its new identity in this very changed world. And especially now, after [the] 11th of September, I think there is a lot of a new kind of evil in this world and it is necessary to face this evil and to face all who support it," Mr. Havel said.
While the Czech leader has in the past said U.S. action in Iraq should occur only with international support, he assured Mr. Bush yesterday that the Czech Republic "is and will remain a good friend of the United States, a good ally."
Mr. Bush praised Mr. Havel, calling him "a truly remarkable person, a man who symbolizes courage and determination, and a man who loves freedom."
"Mr. President, you're a unique person who has helped change the world," said the U.S. president. "I am proud to call you friend, and my nation is proud to call the Czech Republic friend as well."
At the brief Oval Office meeting, Mr. Bush told Mr. Havel: "It's important to speak with moral clarity and when you see wrong, to speak about the wrong you see," according to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
During the NATO meeting this fall in Prague, members will consider requests to join by several Central and Eastern European countries, including the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia.
"No final decisions yet," a White House official told the Associated Press.
"We encourage all the NATO aspirant members to continue to work on their goals laid out in the membership action plan. As the president talked about several times on his trips to Europe, there are no geographic limitations on expansion of NATO. His vision is of a Europe whole, free and at peace," the official said.
In New York, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who meets Mr. Bush at the White House tomorrow, reaffirmed Moscow's opposition to NATO's expansion, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.
Mr. Ivanov said at a Eurasia summit that the international community should "live in keeping with the principles of the 21st century rather than old stereotypes."
Accepting new candidates would add to the three countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland - the alliance accepted in 1999 in its first post-Cold War enlargement.
About 40 heads of state and several hundred government officials and other delegates are expected to attend the Nov. 21-22 summit.
Mr. Fleischer said Mr. Bush and Mr. Havel also talked about the Middle East.
"The president continues to believe - and he talked to President Havel about this - that peace in the Middle East needs to be secured by the creation of a Palestinian state, and that Palestinian state must be based on democratic principles, and have a government that represents its people," the spokesman said.
Mr. Havel appeared in ill health after the meeting. The Czech leader, whose term ends in January and who is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election, has severe respiratory problems. During a short question-and-answer period with reporters, he leaned his elbows onto his knees and spoke with labored breaths.
Mr. Havel and his wife last night had dinner at the White House.
-------- russia / chechnya
[Watch the US support Russia on attacking Chechnya, declaring the rebels "terrorists" and getting Russia's vote against Iraq, the way China's "terrorists" were recently labeled. et]
FBI Warns of Chechen-Led Al Qaeda Plot
From a Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 19 2002
http://www.latimes.com/la-na-alert19sep19(0,7668349).story
WASHINGTON -- Against a backdrop of missed warnings about the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI officials issued a bulletin Wednesday warning of an alleged plan by Al Qaeda members to hijack an airliner in the U.S. using Muslim extremists of non-Arabic appearance.
"Purportedly, Al Qaeda members have discussed using Chechen Muslims affiliated with Al Qaeda but already present in the U.S. for such operations in order to avoid security scrutiny at airports," it said. "Once aboard the aircraft as many as 10 or 20 hijackers seated in first class would overwhelm the crew and seize control."
Also, the bulletin said, Al Qaeda members purportedly have discussed using "improvised explosive device components transported onto commercial aircraft in carry-on luggage. The components ... would appear to be nonthreatening but would become highly explosive."
The sourcing of the information suggests that it was based upon "discussions" among Al Qaeda members before last year's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to the bulletin.
"The FBI possesses no new information indicating that such operational planning is currently being pursued by the Al Qaeda network or any other group. However, law enforcement and security agencies should remain alert to the possibility," the warning said.
----
A Parody of Partnership
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Washington Post; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36911-2002Sep18?language=printer
VLADIMIR PUTIN, the soul-baring friend of President Bush, is offering another demonstration of why the administration's flighty rhetoric about the "transformation" of U.S.-Russian relations has been premature. Mr. Putin's government is doing its best to hamstring Mr. Bush's campaign against Iraq; the Russian ambassador at the United Nations rushed to embrace Saddam Hussein's transparently tactical acceptance of weapons inspectors and declared that no further action by the Security Council was needed. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin himself is peddling a grotesque parody of Mr. Bush's principled stand on both Iraq and Afghanistan: Last week he informed the Security Council, in terms that deliberately echoed Mr. Bush, that the war on terrorism may require a unilateral Russian attack on the small neighboring nation of Georgia, a former republic of the Soviet Union that infuriates Moscow merely by existing as an independent, democratic and pro-Western state. This stunningly brazen attempt to cloak an old-fashioned threat of military aggression in Mr. Bush's new doctrine of preemption has been accompanied by an even more cynical suggestion of quid pro quo: Allow Russia to crush Georgian sovereignty, Mr. Putin hints, and he just might acquiesce in the enforcement of the U.N.-ordered disarmament of Iraq. Bush administration officials are saying they won't play Mr. Putin's game; the White House needs to make that point unambiguously this week to Mr. Putin's visiting defense and foreign ministers.
The nominal basis for Mr. Putin's threat to Georgia, a country the size of South Carolina with a mostly Christian population of 5 million, is that it is tolerating the presence of Muslim rebel fighters from the neighboring Russian province of Chechnya. Mr. Putin insists that these are terrorists, indistinguishable from al Qaeda, and that Georgia is allowing them to operate training camps and pass freely across the border. In fact the insurgents are almost all ethnic Chechens fighting for self-rule who take refuge during summer in the Pankisi Gorge, a wild, 11-mile-long strip that has long been lawless. The Bush administration contends that some al Qaeda operatives may be present in the Pankisi, but evidence is scant. In any case, the Georgian government clearly has no interest in backing al Qaeda terrorists, or even the Chechens; it has readily accepted an ongoing U.S. training program for its army, and it recently dispatched 1,000 troops to clear out the Pankisi. President Eduard Shevardnadze has asked to meet with Mr. Putin and invited international monitoring of the border area; this week his administration agreed to extradite 13 suspects Russia says are Chechen guerrillas.
These initiatives are not enough for Mr. Putin: His generals say they are readying a cross-border invasion, following up on airstrikes carried out last month. It's not likely that Russian forces, which have failed to control Chechen movements across their own border, could eliminate or even locate any militants in the Pankisi. But that's not Mr. Putin's real aim. His goals are to distract attention from a recent series of military disasters in Chechnya -- incidents that have revived discussion in Russia about the futility of Mr. Putin's campaign to suppress the rebellion by force -- and to use the leverage of Russia's U.N. Security Council vote on Iraq to achieve suzerainty over Georgia, which Moscow has been seeking since long before the war on terrorism. This is not the behavior of a soul mate, or even a "strategic partner"; and a U.S.-Russian relationship afflicted by such tactics has not been transformed.
-------- spy agencies
Former BAKIN Chief A.C. Manulang: Omar Al-Faruq Recruited by The CIA
19 Sep 2002
WIB Tempo, Indonesia
http://www.tempo.co.id/news/2002/9/19/1,1,25,uk.html
TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: Former State Intelligence Coordinating Board (BAKIN) chief A.C. Manulang has said that Kuwaitd citizen Omar Al-Faruq, a terrorist suspect who was arrested in Bogor, West Java, on June 5, 2002 and handed over to the US three days later, is a CIA-recruited agent.
Al Faruq was assigned to infiltrate Islamic radical groups and recruit local agents within these groups.
"When Al Faruq finished his assignments, the CIA created a scenario that he had been arrested," Manulang told Tempo News Room in Jakarta on Thursday afternoon (19/9).
Manulang made this analysis based on the pattern used by Al Faruq, that of having Kuwait citizenship but holding a Pakistani passport, entering Indonesia as a refugee and marrying an Indonesian woman.
This kind of operation is aimed at starting conflicts in Indonesia and creating the image that Indonesia is a land of terrorists.
"After the CIA obtained complete data on this matter, they then made Al-Faruq disappear. It's common in intelligence world," said Manulang.
Manulang said he considered several matters in the arrest of Al Faruq last July to be odd, such as the denial of National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar over the police's involvement in Al Faruq's arrest, and the lack of official documents in Al Faruq's handing over to the US.
"In the handing over of a detainee to other country, there should be an announcement or deportation document. Al Faruq's case indicated a lack of coordination between the Indonesian police and intelligence agencies," said Manulang.
As for Al Faruq's testimony in Time magazine that he had masterminded the plan to murder Indonesian President Megawati and several bombings in Indonesia, Manulang considered this as an attempt to making Islamic groups the scapegoats for all terrorism incidents.
"Anti-Islam intelligence agencies committed the bombings in Indonesia. They have been trained for this and they are very organized," said Manulang.
Therefore, he added, it was useless to arrest the bombers.
"We must arrest the mastermind of the bombings in Indonesia," stated Manulang.
According to Manulang, it's possible that Al Faruq recruited radical people from Islamic groups for his plan.
In regards to the murder attempt on Megawati, Manulang did not consider this as a serious matter.
"Megawati does not need to be worried. She's not the real target in this matter," said Manulang.
Manulang requested the government immediately verify the CIA report on Al Faruq.
"Such a report could only be a dummy or false intelligence information that is aimed at misleading the public," stated Manulang. (Sapto Pradityo-Tempo News Room)
-------- un
Annan Tells Iraq It Must Allow Unfettered Weapons Inspections
New York Times
September 19, 2002
By JULIA PRESTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/international/middleeast/19NATI.html
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 - Secretary General Kofi Annan told Iraq today that he expected "full and unconditional cooperation" with United Nations weapons inspectors when they return to the country, as American officials charged that Iraq was seeking to limit the sites that inspectors could examine.
In a meeting this evening with the Iraqi foreign minister, Naji Sabri, Mr. Annan made clear that he has no doubts about the skills of Hans Blix, the Swedish weapons expert who heads the inspection team based here. Iraqi officials have dismissed Mr. Blix as a "spy."
As the United Nations prepared for renewed inspections, American diplomats worked to regain the initiative for a Security Council resolution threatening military action to force Baghdad to rid itself of any weapons of mass destruction.
Bush administration officials said they understood that Iraqi officials told Mr. Blix in a meeting here on Tuesday that some sites would be off limits. Mr. Blix is to report on the meeting to the full Security Council on Thursday. "We expect Blix to share with the Council his frustration that the Iraqis were not able to offer up unfettered access," one administration official said.
American officials sought to build a case in the Council that Iraq was already trying to subvert the inspections. They hoped to convince doubting Council nations that the inspections would not work to make Iraq abandon its weapons programs.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made phone calls over the past two days to his counterparts in France, Russia and Britain as well as to Mr. Annan in an attempt to mend rifts that emerged Tuesday over the Iraqi offer to renew the inspections, suspended since 1998.
The United States and Britain began crafting the language of a tough draft resolution, and the British ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, scheduled a meeting Friday with the 10 nonpermanent Council members to discuss it. The text would require the inspections to lead to Iraqi disarmament and authorize a military attack if Iraq does not comply.
Although France, a permanent veto-bearing Council member, appeared to shift toward the United States today, saying it would consider a new resolution, Syria and Mauritius, nonpermanent members, said they thought the inspectors' return was enough to ensure that Iraq was getting rid of its weapons.
Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, said in an interview to be published on Thursday in a German daily, General-Anzeiger, that the world should work to subvert the government of Saddam Hussein "from within," without a military assault. The American ambassador to Germany, Daniel R.Coats, told a business audience in Frankfurt that the dispute over Iraq "makes the job more difficult" of the alliance between Germany and the United States, Reuters reported.
-------- us
Air Force Base Exempted from Reporting Rules
September 19, 2002
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2002/2002-09-19-09.asp#anchor2
WASHINGTON, DC, President George W. Bush has suspended certain waste reporting requirements at the Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada due to security concerns.
Noting that the base is the subject of two ongoing environmental lawsuits that could force the release of sensitive information, Bush said, "I find that it is in the paramount interest of the United States to exempt the United States Air Force's operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada ... from any applicable requirement for the disclosure to unauthorized persons of classified information concerning that operating location."
The order, made in a memorandum to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Secretary of the Air Force, exempts the Air Force base "from any federal, state, interstate or local provision respecting control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal that would require the disclosure of classified information concerning the operating location to any unauthorized person."
The exemption is effective for one year.
The Bush order notes that existing environmental laws are not intended to require the disclosure of classified information, specifically citing the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Under RCRA, the EPA regulates hazardous waste from its creation to its safe disposal, and waste generators must report on their wastes to the EPA.
----
[These people are so transparently nuts. Please call radio talk shows and expose the Emperor's advisors as stark nakedly insane. Be sure you read how unflinchingingly they plan to send our kids in to face chemical or biological weapons. Do they forget that the U.S. dropped 300 tons of depleted uranium ammunition on Iraq a decade ago? Is it possible the Iraqis have learned how to reuse some of the duds? Have they seen the monster babies of d.u.-exposed Iraqi civilians and U.S. and British soldiers? Do they know what the effect of chemical or biological weapons will have on future generations? Do they care about anything but Bush Senior's pride? How can intelligent men be so stupid? et - mailto:prop1@prop1.org (NucNews Editor)]
US Air Power Could Not Destroy Iraqi Arms-Rumsfeld
September 19, 2002
By Laura MacInnis
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=ZDBHXTNBP2KGQCRBAEKSFEY?type=topnews&StoryID=1472211#
WASHINGTON - American air power alone could not wipe out Iraq's secretive and deeply buried arms programs and any U.S. attack to do so would require ground troops, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told Congress on Thursday.
Rumsfeld and the nation's top military officer, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, also told the Senate Armed Services Committee they could not guarantee that Iraq would not use chemical or biological weapons against those troops.
"The Iraq problem cannot be solved by air strikes alone," said Rumsfeld in a second day of testimony to urge Congress to pass a resolution authorizing President Bush to use any means necessary to eradicate Iraq's arms programs.
He said Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs were widely dispersed and have been placed in sensitive areas.
"We simply do not know where all, or even a large portion, of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) facilities are. We do know where a fraction of them are. Of the facilities we do know, not all are vulnerable to attack from the air," Rumsfeld added.
"A good many are underground and deeply buried. Others are purposely located near population centers, schools, hospitals, mosques, where an air strike could kill a large number of innocent people."
NO GUARANTEE ON WMD USE
Rumsfeld said he believed the Iraqi military would not obey any order from President Saddam Hussein to launch weapons of mass destruction against invading troops, but could not guarantee such refusal.
"I don't think any of the senior leadership -- civilian or military -- thinks that any combat operation is a cakewalk," added Myers in response to a question from Democratic Committee Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan.
"And certainly, if the president would ask us to conduct combat operations in Iraq that is certainly not how I would characterize it," Myers added."
Levin suggested, as have a number of other Democratic senators, that the United States should steer any military action against Iraq through the United Nations and get help from allied militaries.
"I believe if we really mean it when we say that we want the U.N. to be relevant, that we should not act in a manner that treats them as irrelevant," Levin said.
"A go-it-alone approach, where we attack Iraq without the support and participation of the world community, would be very different" from cooperation with the United Nations on Iraq in years past, he added.
But Republican John Warner of Virginia said that if the United Nations did not deal with Saddam Hussein, the United States must do so for its own protection.
"He (Saddam) has to be convinced that enough is enough," Warner said.
----
U.S. troops ready to assist Yemen from base in Africa
September 19, 2002
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020919-10813531.htm
The United States has positioned up to 800 troops in the Horn of Africa for insertion into nearby Yemen to eliminate al Qaeda followers in the border region with Saudi Arabia.
U.S. officials said the contingent includes special operations troops trained in hunting down terrorists. Officials declined to say whether the contingent would enter Yemen or whether any action was imminent.
Meanwhile, a Yemeni government official said his country would use its own troops to hunt al Qaeda members and would not permit U.S. Special Forces to launch covert operations.
"Yemen's position is clear: Yemeni forces are the ones responsible for conducting any operations, be they searches or attacks," the official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
He said cooperation with the United States was limited to the training of Yemeni security forces and the exchange of intelligence.
Yemen has been one of al Qaeda's largest strongholds. It was from the tribal border region that Osama bin Laden's operatives planned and carried out the suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 American sailors.
Officials said the deployment of U.S. troops to the tiny African country of Djibouti is part of an overall plan by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to accelerate the war against the al Qaeda network. "He wants them killed faster," said one administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Washington Times first reported last month that Mr. Rumsfeld had ordered his top commando, Gen. Charles Holland, who heads U.S. Special Operations Command, to develop a new plan for clandestine actions around the world. The plan called for Special Operations Command - SoCom, as it is known - to take control of specific missions that would normally be headed by regional combatant commands, such as U.S. Central Command, which runs the war in Afghanistan.
The amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood was sailing in the Gulf of Aden between Djibouti and Yemen. The ship could be used as a launching pad for a commando insertion.
News of the troop deployment to Djibouti was first reported this week by wire services and TV networks.
Somalia, located on the Horn of Africa, was once an operating base for some al Qaeda members. The United States has intensively watched the impoverished, warlord-run country to see if al Qaeda would attempt to regroup there after fleeing its main base in Afghanistan.
Senior officials say that several al Qaeda members did emerge in that country last winter, but that no training bases materialized.
Shortly after air strikes began Oct. 7 in Afghanistan, the Pentagon dispatched a team of Army Green Berets to Yemen to train and equip its police force to battle terrorists in the lawless tribal areas near Saudi Arabia. The locals conducted at least one major raid on suspected al Qaeda members, but counterterrorism operations have slowed this summer.
--------
A Gulf War Veteran Asks: What Will I Tell My Children?
By Charles Sheehan-Miles,
AlterNet
September 19, 2002
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14141
I'll never forget the morning of Feb. 27, 1991. I was a young U.S. Army tank soldier, positioned near the banks of the Euphrates River, when two trucks raced through our position at roughly 2 a.m. We opened fire. One truck carried fuel and splashed its burning cargo on the other, and burning men ran everywhere, only to be met by our machine gun fire.
This was my experience of the "clean," "precise" Gulf War. And those images have never left me since.
One day my son or daughter will ask me what I did in the war, and I'll tell them. And they'll have other questions, questions that haunt me, questions we should all be asking before we go to war again.
Where were we when our country allowed untold hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians to die of preventable diseases as result of the sanctions? Reaping the benefits of the "new" economy? Working for high-tech startups, trying to provide a better future for our children?
Where were we when 300,000 sick and disabled Gulf War fought for medical help from our government, and for years got in response lies and bureaucratic misdirection? Were we buying our first homes? Trading up to a new one? Saving for our kids' college?
Where were we, when Congress legislated away our rights to privacy and due process? Huddled with our families, protecting them against terrorists?
What about when the President named American citizens enemy combatants and denied them the rights guaranteed in the Constitution? Were we too busy worrying about the recession? Were we too busy thinking about the next round of layoffs?
Where were we when Congress handed over its Constitutional authority to declare war? The founding fathers wisely placed that power in the whole body of Congress, yet they are too timid to insist on keeping it. Were we too scared by the propaganda and lies? What if there were terrorists in our neighborhoods?
Our children are growing up in a country that is no longer America: a country where the government can search your house without your knowledge; a country where your neighbors may be informants; a country where Americans should "watch what they say;" a country where people are "disappeared" if they look wrong, talk wrong or think wrong; a country that dominates world affairs and keeps its citizens scared; a country willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives over politics, and where the people don't know or care about the cost; a country where democracy is controlled by corporations and the rich.
You know, I've been pretty busy too, with not a lot of time to spend on all those "issues." I make good money. I've got a nice house in the suburbs, a minivan, and I'm raising my children with a better standard of living than my parents had.
Isn't that the American dream? Isn't it? Do you think our children will thank us for their legacy?
The kill-the-Constitution coalition quips "the Constitution is not a suicide pact." They are utterly wrong. Our nation's quest for liberty is best typified by Virginian Patrick Henry's exhortation, "Give me liberty or give me death."
That is the legacy I want to give to my children.
Charles Sheehan-Miles, a decorated Gulf War combat veteran, is the author of "Prayer at Rumayla" (XLibris, 2001) and is a former President of the National Gulf War Resource Center. He can be contacted at http://www.sheehanmiles.com.
-------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS
-------- terrorism
U.S. Was Aware of bin Laden Threat Before Sept. 11 Attacks
New York Times
September 19, 2002
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/19/politics/19CND-INTE.html
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - The United States government was aware before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that Osama bin Laden was a threat but lacked the specific intelligence to prevent the strikes, a State Department official said today.
"Basically, we know that bin Laden had the means and the intent to attack Americans, both at home and abroad," Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
"What we didn't know was at a tactical level," Mr. Armitage said. "We did not know exactly what target Al Qaeda intended to attack, and how and when."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said lessons from the attack show the need for the United States to take action against Iraq. "When people threaten openly to kill Americans, we should take them very seriously," he said. "That is true of Osama bin Laden and it is true of the regime in Baghdad."
The officials testified as the committees held a second day of public hearings into the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Wolfowitz's comments were likely to draw sharp questions from the lawmakers, especially in light of developments on Wednesday.
The Congressional panels' staff director said on Wednesday that the American intelligence community was told in 1998 that Arab terrorists were planning to fly a bomb-laden aircraft into the World Trade Center, but the F.B.I. and the Federal Aviation Administration did not take the threat seriously.
The August 1998 intelligence report from the Central Intelligence Agency was just one of several warnings the United States received, but did not seriously analyze, in the years leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks that were detailed at the Congressional hearings.
Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and John S. McCain, Republican of Arizona, said such disclosures showed the need for an independent commission to investigate the attacks.
The attacks "could have been prevented if we were doing everything we should have done and if we had our guard up," Mr. Lieberman said. He and Mr. McCain said they would try to include creation of the commission in a bill being considered by the Senate to create a cabinet-level Homeland Security Department.
The existence of the 1998 intelligence report was disclosed in a presentation by the committee's staff director, Eleanor Hill.
The report concluded that there was evidence of a dangerous and growing interest by Al Qaeda and related groups in high-profile attacks inside the United States years before the attacks on the trade center and the Pentagon.
The Congressional report was the first disclosure that there was specific intelligence about terrorist plans to crash airplanes into the trade center, though officials said that those plans did not appear to be connected to the Sept. 11 attack.
But while the joint committee made public several intelligence reports that had been received in the years before Sept. 11 that related to Al Qaeda's intentions to launch an attack inside the United States and its interest in using aircraft for terrorism, Ms. Hill emphasized that the joint committee has still not found a "smoking gun" that could have helped prevent the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
"People have said there was no smoking gun," Ms. Hill said. "But there was still a lot out there that was never pulled together."
In fact, from 1998 to the summer of 2001, the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other agencies repeatedly received reports of Al Qaeda's interest in attacking Washington and New York, either with airplanes or other means. The threat level grew so high that by December 1998, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, issued a "declaration of war" on Al Qaeda, in a memorandum circulated in the intelligence community. Yet, Ms. Hill said, the intelligence agencies failed to adequately follow up on the declaration, and by Sept. 10, 2001, the F.B.I. still had only one analyst assigned full time to Al Qaeda.
The 1998 intelligence report about the trade center concerned supposed plans by a group of unidentified Arabs, who the United States now believes had ties to Al Qaeda, to fly an explosives-laden plane from a foreign country into the trade center. American intelligence officials said Wednesday that, despite the close similarities, they do not believe that the 1998 report was related to the Sept. 11 attack.
Still, the Congressional panel criticized the way in which the intelligence was handled, particularly by the F.B.I. and F.A.A. The committee said that the F.B.I.'s New York office "took no action on the information, filing the communication in the office's bombing repository file." The F.A.A., meanwhile, "found the plot highly unlikely," because of the state of the unidentified foreign country's aviation program.
The F.A.A. discounted the intelligence report based on the views of the F.B.I., officials said.
"We did review the technical aspects of the information, but any decisions about whether it was credible was based on an F.B.I. determination," the spokesman for the Transportation Department said.
Law enforcement officials said the F.B.I.'s conclusion that the threat was not credible was based on the seeming difficulty of launching the attack from the unidentified foreign country.
While that August 1998 report most closely paralleled the final attack, the C.I.A. also received a series of other warnings during the same period of Al Qaeda's interest in using aircraft against targets in the United States.
In September, 1998, intelligence agencies obtained information warning that Osama bin Laden's next major operation could involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into an American airport and then detonating it. That same fall, another intelligence report stated that there was a Qaeda plot in the works that involved the use of aircraft in both New York and Washington.
Yet the reports did not prompt the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies to conduct an analysis of that specific threat to American aviation, the joint committee found. And the F.A.A. did not change its traditional assumptions that airplane hijackings were not suicide missions. American commercial airlines directed their flight crews not to fight back against hijackers, believing that negotiations for the release of the passengers and crew could begin once a plane was safely on the ground.
But the reports of Al Qaeda's interest in attacks in the United States extended beyond aircraft. In the spring of 1999, the C.I.A. received another report that Mr. bin Laden wanted to attack a government facility in Washington, which the committee report did not identify.
In August 1999, another report stated that Al Qaeda had apparently chosen for assassination the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and the C.I.A. director. The C.I.A. had been told the previous year that Mr. bin Laden and his lieutenants had also agreed to issue $9 million bounties for the assassination of four top intelligence officers, who the report did not identify. The bounties came in response to the American government's decision to increase the reward for information leading to Mr. bin Laden's arrest.
In the spring and summer of 2001, American intelligence picked up several threat reports that strongly indicated al Qaeda's intentions to begin a major attack against American targets. Since Sept. 11, American intelligence officials have said that most of that intelligence suggested that the attack was planned against American facilities overseas.
Still, there were some reports during that period that referred to domestic attacks, the joint committee revealed in its interim report released Wednesday. In April 2001, an individual with terrorist connections speculated that Mr. bin Laden would be interested in using commercial pilots as terrorists. The individual warned that the United States should not focus only on potential embassy bombings, and that Al Qaeda wanted to mount "spectacular and traumatic" attacks like the first bombing of the trade center in 1993.
The C.I.A. first created a unit inside its counter-terrorism center to track Mr. bin Laden in 1996. But the joint committee's report strongly suggests that it was not until 1998 that officials throughout the F.B.I., C.I.A. and other agencies began to recognize the urgent threat posed by Al Qaeda. The August 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa was a wake-up call, the first major al Qaeda operation to follow a February 1998 fatwa, or religious decree, in which Mr. bin Laden called for attacks on United States military personnel and civilians anywhere in the world. In May 1998, Mr. bin Laden publicly discussed "bringing the war home to America."
The intelligence reports indicating Al Qaeda's desire to launch a major attack inside the United States appear to have been widely discounted, as analysts focused their attention on more specific threats overseas, the joint committee found. The response of intelligence agencies to the Qaeda threat also varied widely.
On Dec. 4, 1998, Mr. Tenet issued his declaration of war, "I want no resource or people spared."
Yet the joint committee found that few of the F.B.I. agents interviewed by it had ever heard of Mr. Tenet's declaration.
The panel also concluded that prior to Sept. 11, only one F.B.I. analyst was assigned full time to Al Qaeda, although others were working on individual terrorist cases related to Mr. bin Laden's network. The joint committee report also said that in 1999, the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center had only three analysts assigned full time to Al Qaeda.
Both the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. disputed those figures Wednesday. Law enforcement officials said the committee's numbers were misleading, because at the time of last year's attacks, the F.B.I.'s Al Qaeda analysts were not assigned to a separate analytical section, but to two operational groups, the Mr. bin Laden unit and the Radical Fundamentalist unit. A total of about 30 people were assigned to the two units.
-------- ENERGY AND OTHER
-------- alternative energy
Signing up for renewable energy offers both rewards and pitfalls
Thursday, September 19, 2002
By Arvin Donner,
E/The Environmental Magazine
http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/09/09192002/s_47829.asp
The California energy disaster has left the once-vigorous electricity deregulation process in shambles. Some states, seeing the Golden State get absolutely soaked by deregulated energy suppliers, have suspended the process.
According to the U.S. Energy Department, by last spring 17 states had actively restructured their electric utilities, six had delayed implementation of an already approved deregulation plan and 26 had decided against pursuing deregulation. As Salon magazine reported, the turmoil over deregulation forced many "green power" companies, including Go-Green and TenderLand Power in California, into receivership.
The idea is certainly sound: Once they acquire customers, green power companies promise to buy wind, solar, or methane power from suppliers and add it to the grid, thus offsetting the nuclear- or coal-generated electricity that would otherwise be used.
When environmentalists look at deregulation as an issue, the possibility of green power is commonly the only positive thing they see. Most side with Public Citizen, which declared, "What deregulation really means is that large corporations will get a bigger piece of the pie, resulting in major losses for the environment and consumers."
AN UNCERTAIN MARKET
The bankruptcies have left retail and corporate customers unsure whether they can count on green power suppliers. And there's a lot of confusion about pricing, which for the most part remains significantly higher than conventional energy. Green energy prices not only differ by state or region but also by provider and program. The pricing methodology is complex, with the local availability of renewable energy supplies one huge variable.
Dan Lieberman, program price manager of the Center for Resource Solutions (CRS), a San Francisco-based nonprofit green energy accreditation organization, said consumers need to look at the green power provider's disclosure statement to see the mix of renewable sources and to get at least a general idea of how prices will be determined.
When it comes to pricing, renewable energy is not created equally. "Wind power is typically one of the less expensive renewables," said Lieberman. "In places like the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and the Midwest it's very affordable." Though initial capital costs for wind power are higher than for natural gas, prices are generally stable, since wind energy production isn't tied to the same variables that control the fossil fuel market.
Conventional energy costs between 5 and 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Nationally, wind power prices average an affordable 4 cents per kWh, and that's before the 1.5 cent federal wind power generation tax credit. The other less expensive and less intermittent renewables, which average 3 cents per kWh, are geothermal, some types of biomass, and small, low--impact hydroelectric facilities.
Lieberman said energy from solar photovoltaic (PV) cells is typically the most expensive because the capital investment is so high. "Take it from someone who owns his own PV system," he said. "My initial cost was $9,000, and that's fairly inexpensive for PV cells. My energy costs are still 20 cents to 25 cents per kWh."
Many energy providers say they have to charge more for renewables to offset the risk and expense of researching and developing new markets. "Providers say it is more expensive energy to produce, and it's definitely true that wind and solar power have very small government subsidies compared to coal and nuclear power energy," said Isaac Elancavae of the Michigan Environmental Council. An added problem is that in some energy markets, like New England's, renewable prices are determined simply by applying a cost premium to fluctuating fossil fuel prices.
Energy policy experts disagree on the future pricing trends for renewables. But if history is any indicator, prices can only go down. Wind and solar power prices have dropped 80 to 90 percent since the 1970s, but that hasn't yet led to widespread adoption. According to Elancavae, until renewables are priced nationally in the same cost mix as conventional energy sources, green energy will never really take its place in the national market.
THE COLLEGE TRY
Renewable energy marketers are also looking beyond the residential customer. The Connecticut Energy Cooperative signed a deal last year with Connecticut College, which became the first university to commit itself to 100 percent renewable Green-e electricity (certified by the CRS). "The students needed to do something," said Sara Zisa, co-president of the school's Renewable Energy Club. Wesleyan University, also in Connecticut, bought green power last year for its athletic center.
Bob Maddox, marketing director of the Connecticut co-op, urges green power buyers to look beyond the bottom-line price and subtract the external costs to society of avoided pollution. "Buying green energy requires a different mindset from the consumer who buys organic food," he said. "Consumers are not buying green energy for just themselves and their families; they're buying it for the common good of our entire society."
Arvin Donner is a freelance writer in Columbus, Ohio.
-------- environment
Stockpiles of pesticides in Africa are dangerous, U.N. agency warns
Thursday, September 19, 2002
By Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/09/09192002/ap_48474.asp
ROME - Toxic waste from some 120,000 tons of unused pesticides in Africa is threatening peoples' health and the environment, a U.N. food agency said Wednesday.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization expressed concern about stockpiles of pesticide which can no longer be used because its potency has expired or which has leaked into soil from corroded steel drums and other containers.
Despite some clean-up initiatives like an agency-led project in Ethiopia which aims to remove more than 3,000 tons, in the last decade, less than 5 percent of the estimated stockpiles has been disposed of, the agency said.
With no proper disposal facilities for hazardous waste in Africa, the pesticides have to be shipped to developed countries - where the products were often manufactured - for high-temperature incineration, the agency said. The average cost for every ton destroyed is US$3,500, the agency said.
Several U.N agencies, together with the African Development Bank and nongovernmental organizations, have launched a program to rid the African continent of unusable pesticides and contaminated waste in the next 10-15 years.
The program will cost about US$250 million, the agency said.
-------- ACTIVISTS
Police warn of IMF gridlock
By Jim Keary
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 19, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20020919-647479.htm
Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey yesterday warned that commuters should not plan to drive to work Sept. 27 because anti-capitalist demonstrators plan to shut down all traffic into the District.
"If you plan to drive to work on the 27th, bring a sandwich and a good CD to listen to because you could be struck in traffic for a while," Chief Ramsey said.
The chief said he expects traffic on all bridges into the city, plus Metrorail service, will be hampered by demonstrators protesting the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
"You have to look at the entire city. We don't know where they will strike," Chief Ramsey said.
Protest organizers are expecting more than 10,000 demonstrators in town between Sept. 25 and 29 to protest the World Bank and IMF meetings. The meetings are scheduled for Sept. 28 and 29.
Protesters in previous demonstrations have tried to block delegates from attending the meeting, but this year they plan to prevent everyone from entering the city.
Protest organizer Michael Loadenthal, a member of the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, said several demonstrations are planned to block people from entering the city Sept. 27.
"The chief has a very good assessment of what to expect," Mr. Loadenthal said. "We are planning to shut the city down."
He said all forms of transportation, including the Metro, will be targeted, adding that the extent of the traffic stoppage will depend on the number of demonstrators.
"It is the day before the IMF meetings and the last day of the fiscal year. We are encouraging workers and students to strike, to make business as usual not happen," he said.
Chief Ramsey said he is concerned that escape routes from the city could be blocked in the event of a terrorist attack.
"This is a public safety issue, if they plan to block every escape route from the city," the police chief said. "Just think if a man has a heart attack and we can't get an ambulance to him."
Mr. Loadenthal said protesters have no intention of preventing ambulances from entering the city or otherwise doing anything that will harm anyone. "We are not trying to injure anyone, and no one is stopping an ambulance from coming into the city," he said.
Chief Ramsey said that Web sites operated by the demonstrators are promoting "scavenger hunts" that encourage protesters to break windows or cause other property damage.
"They are making it a game," he said. "They are no longer demonstrators. They've become hooligans."
But Mr. Loadenthal and a spokesman for the Mobilization for Global Justice, another organizing group, said no one is promoting "scavenger hunts" or property damage.
In April 2000, more than 10,000 activists descended on the District for a week of World Bank and IMF protests, ending in a two-day showdown with police that led to more than 1,200 arrests.
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